(Radio Iowa) – A city that was hit by the 2020 derecho (duh-RAY-choh) will have a celebration this Saturday (Oct. 14th)  to mark a milestone. Tim Ellsworth is president of Imagine Grinnell’s board of directors.  “It’s been a three year initiative,” he says, “and we’re going to finally plant our 1000th tree on October 14th.” Ellsworth says about a third of Grinnell’s tree canopy was destroyed by the storm and the Emerald Ash Borer has hit the community’s tree population as well. Imagine Grinnell raised the money to buy all one-thousand trees, at a wholesale price.

“On one hand, it doesn’t seem like a lot of trees,” Ellsworth says. “…On the other hand, it’s darned near $100,000 and it’s a lot of effort on a lot of different days with a lot of different people.” On Friday morning, Imagine Grinnell will be distributing about 60 trees to Grinnell residents who haven’t already received a tree and live in the city’s 50112 zip code.

“We’ve got a number of different trees available again, some of our favorites,” Ellsworth says, “the white oaks, Chinkapin oaks, Hackberries, tulip trees, American linden.” There about several dozen people on the waiting list for these trees and Ellsworth says Grinnell residents should call ahead to see if there are a few left. The distribution center will be the Grinnell soccer complex. “We’ll have plenty of people to help load them and unload them and if we need to get them delivered, that’s not the end of the world,” Ellsworth says. “We can usually drop some off, too.”

After the project’s thousandth tree is planted, Ellsworth says Grinnell’s Tree Corps volunteers will continue watering many of the trees that have been planted over the past three years.