BY PAUL MITCHELL
North Country This Week

CANTON – Do you live in the village and want a maple tree planted? And at half the cost.

The Canton Rotary Club is making trees available to village property owners.

Partnering the tree program with Kevin Blanchard of Willow Tree Nursery in Potsdam and the SUNY Canton fraternity Alpha Theta Gamma, a new Autumn Blaze maple tree can spruce up your property in a matter of days.

“This is another example of what Rotary Clubs do in our communities,” said Canton Rotary Club President Jeanne Tyo-Martin. “The club is donating half of the cost of the trees for any village property owners who wish to have a tree planted for them in the front yard.”

The tree must be planted along the road with a limitation of 35 feet deep from the roadside.

A $40 maple tree will cost the property owner just $20 and the trees will be planted for free by the fraternity members. The trees are 6 to 8 feet tall. The tree is fast growing, very adaptable and has a great fall color.

“We are always willing to give our time and efforts to help our community,” said Nikolas Rauch from the Alpha Theta Gamma fraternity. “A famous man was said ‘think globally, act locally’ and that’s a good motto we live by for the betterment of the world and its best to focus our efforts on our little piece of heaven and hopefully we can be a beacon for others to give back.”

Anyone interested can email Lance Rudiger, project coordinator, at lrudiger@aol.com. The trees will be distributed on a first come, first serve basis.

“This will make Canton a more beautiful village with trees that provide welcome green in the spring, cooling shade and breeze in the summer, fantastic autumn blaze color in the fall and stately dark shapes in the winter,” noted Rudiger.

On and off over many years, planting trees has always been a project of the Canton Rotary Club, Rudiger said.