CSX ‘Trees for Tracks’ and Alliance for Community Trees Work To Replace Trees Destroyed by 2008 Tornado In Historic Atlanta Neighborhood

Business Wire

posted: 15 DAYS 16 HOURS AGO

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The loss of hundreds of mature trees may be the most lasting insult left by a March 13-14 tornado that devastated historic Cabbagetown, but an effort by CSX and Alliance for Community Trees from 8:30 am – 12 noon on Saturday, November 14 at the Fulton Cotton Mills at 170 Boulevard Drive may help undo at least a little bit of the damage.

“Days, weeks and even months after a natural disaster the most obvious damage is what you see,” says Tori Kaplan, director of corporate citizenship for CSX. “But once things are cleaned up, it’s what you don’t see. In Cabbagetown, a lot of what you don’t see are the mature trees that gave shade and beauty to the entire area.”

“Trees really do make a neighborhood more livable,” adds Alice Ewen, executive director of the national DC-area based Alliance for Community Trees, which has Trees Atlanta here, along with affiliates in major cities across the country. “The shade and environment they provide is especially important. Without them, people are less likely to be outside socializing with their neighbors.”

CSX and Alliance for Community Trees will plant 65 large spruce and loblolly pine, black gum, southern red oak, Kentucky coffee, redbud, American elm and crape myrtle trees along Boulevard Drive, which runs by the Fulton Cotton Mill and the CSX Container facility. Each species was selected because it is “either native or particularly well adapted to the Southeast and part of the historic Atlanta landscape, beloved for generations,” says Ewen.

The tree planting is part of CSX “ Trees for Tracks,” a promise to plant 21,000 trees (one for every mile of track in the railway’s system) over the next five years. The railway partners with Alliance for Community Trees, which provides volunteers and specific expertise on what to plant and where, and the Boston-based City Year national youth service organization. In Atlanta, they also will be working with the local Cabbagetown Arboretum Committee.

“‘Trees for Tracks’ is our commitment to put back into the communities we connect by planting trees where they are needed most, and I can’t think of a better place than this great neighborhood,” says Tori Kaplan, CSX Director of Corporate Citizenship.

Past CSX “Trees for Tracks” events have been held in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Future events will be held in Miami and other cities.