MURRELLS INLET, SC (WBTW) – Volunteers gave away three thousand trees on Sunday as part of an effort to help decrease water pollution along the Grand Strand.
The group “Trees for Tomorrow” organized the giveaway, and handed out hundreds of magnolia, redbud, cedar and dogwood trees. Volunteers gave away the trees at two locations – Hot Fish Club in Murrells Inlet and Moe’s Original BBQ in Pawleys Island. Back in 2012, “Trees for Tomorrow” set out to give away 15,000 trees over the span of five years and today they surpassed that goal.
Todd Stephenson is the owner of Total Tree and Lake Care, one of the founding sponsors of “Trees for Tomorrow”, and says their goal is to replenish the tree population in order to cut down the pollution seeping into local waterways. He says trees can intercept and sequester pollutants emanating from the mainland. “Especially after Matthew and some of the ice storms we’ve had, there have been tree losses. A lot of trees are coming down for homes to be built, so we’re hoping that we can get trees in these new neighborhoods and that are coming up and again start realizing the benefits from them.”