If your once green, lush and proud real Christmas tree now has fewer needles than grandma's knitting basket there is a group willing to help give it a decent send-off.  

Over the next two weekends, the 1st Airdrie Scouts will be conducting their annual Christmas tree pick-up in the city.  Scouter Rob Noble with the group says last year's roundup went exceptionally well.

"It went really great last year.  We had a lot of good support from the community.  We had a lot of trees to go pick up, we were pretty busy over the days we did it. Yeah, it was awesome."

Noble says the Scouts are the only group that he knows of that does curbside pick-up, and he adds, it's a lot easier for them to do it than for you to take them for recycling.

"We collect them and take them over to the eastside recycling depot where the city turns them into mulch, but it's a lot easier for us with a big trailer to take those trees instead of having to load it inside your car.  When you buy it at the store, it's wrapped up nice and tight."

The 1st Airdrie Scouts includes 60 kids ranging in age from 5 to 14 and most of them will be involved in the tree pick-up.  Noble explains how to book a pick up for your home.

"They can go on our website, it's 1stairdriescouts.com and right from there there's a button that will take you where you can sign up."  

The project helps with the Scout mandate of serving the community, but it's also a way of raising money for them.  Noble says while donations aren't necessary, they're sure accepted.

"People have been pretty supportive of our efforts and they can put a donation online.  Some people leave a donation with the tree and it's all very much appreciated.  Our scouts are going off to Vancouver Island this summer for a jamboree."

Not only can people help the scouts, but they can also help beautify Airdrie.  Once again, Noble says, the scouts are out to make the city a more scenic place.'

"Last year and this year, for every donation over $20 we got trees from Water Valley Nurseries and we worked with the city and we planted those trees in the city parks and we did a little community clean up around Mother's Day last spring and we're going to do the same thing this year."

Noble says last year the scouts collected around 100 trees and are hoping for more this year.  

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