By Cristen Baumann, VP and District Manager

The planet needs your help! On April 23, our Shorewood and East branches are sponsoring the Urban Ecology Center’s Earth Day of Service at Riverside Park in Milwaukee. We are looking for other North Shore Bank employees, family members, and friends who can volunteer for the event. It will run from 9am till noon, and lunch will be served afterward.

Tasks to help with include:

• Tree planting
• Invasive species removal
• Removal of dead vegetation
• Cleanup of trash and garbage

Teenagers who participate can receive volunteer credits and include the time on their college applications. Younger kids are welcome, too! Last year, my 5-year-old (now 6) thought tree planting was a competition — he kept visiting other groups and asking, “How many trees have you planted? We’ve planted __!”

Riverside Park is less than 10 minutes from our Shorewood branch:

The Urban Ecology Center is an educational organization founded in 1991 to encourage Milwaukee residents to spend more time outdoors in nature. Among the center’s big jobs are keeping the river and the surrounding land clean, controlling and mitigating the effects of invasive species, and increasing plant diversity. The center has planted thousands of tree and plant species with deep root systems, which improves noninvasive species’ chances of survival.

Please get the word out to your teams, your family, and your friends, and email me at cbaumann@northshorebank.com or East Branch Manager Dane Didier at ddidier@northshorebank.com to let us know you can help or if you have questions.

Thanks, and we’ll see you on the 23rd!