Once Christmas was over, the 1st Airdrie Scout troop did their part to keep Airdrie friendly to the environment by recycling Christmas trees to keep them out of the local landfill.  

Now the scouts are planning to do even more to keep the city looking clean and green by working this weekend in the community of Sierra Springs.

Rob Noble, a Scout Leader with the 1st Airdrie Scouts says they're fulfilling an offer made when people had their Christmas tree recycled.

"One of the things we did at Christmas time was offer to plant trees for those who got us to pick up their Christmas trees and take them to the recycling depot.  So we're going to be planting some pine trees down in the Sierra Springs area, behind the Visions parking lot against the creek.  We're going to have our scouts out picking up garbage and cleaning up the whole area between Yankee Valley, between the railway tracks and the highway and clean up all the green space in there as part of a 'clean the green' initiative."

The1st Airdrie Scouts won't be working alone on this project.  They're joining together with the 2nd Airdrie Scouts and the 5th Airdrie Scouts to make it all happen.

Noble says working to beautify Airdrie is just one way the scouts try to make strong leaders and good community members out of the young people in the organization.

"A big part of scouting is trying to teach our children to be leaders.  It's a big part of helping them do youth lead programs, having them decide what we're doing.  We're there as adults to help them do what they want to do and learn to be good citizens and community members."

While the day will be mostly about making Airdrie more beautiful, Noble says it's also a chance to promote scouting in the community.  The scouts will be setting up an information table on the Visions parking lot to provide information for anyone interested in being involved with scouting.  

They'll also be selling scouts popcorn and barbequed hot dogs as a fundraiser.  The tree planting, clean up and fundraiser runs from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm.  

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