Volunteers from Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP), Naval Support Activity (NSA) Hampton Roads, and Professional Contract Services Inc. (PCSI) worked together to enhance the Portsmouth Annex landscape in observance of National Public Lands Day. Sept. 27.
National Public Lands Day is an annual event that is held on the fourth Saturday of September and is the nation’s largest single-day volunteer effort. Established in 1994, National Public Lands Day has and does celebrate the connection between people and green space in their community, inspires environmental stewardship, and encourages use of open space for education, recreation and general health.
Taylor Austin, the natural and cultural resources manager at NSA Hampton Roads, seized this opportunity to revive their pollinator garden, a project that was done years prior.
“We are out here supporting National Public Lands Day,” said Austin. “The idea is to enhance the habitat for the pollinator species in the pollinator garden that was set up several years ago but we replanted it for this event last year.”
Along with cleaning up and weeding the garden, Austin and his volunteers dug a hole to install a post with an informational plaque on it to bring attention and education to the garden area.
“The plaque explains the purpose of the pollinator garden,” said Austin. “And why it’s here, why pollinators are important and the current status of pollinators as a whole.”
Along with the work in the pollinator garden, PCSI staff members volunteered to plant 14 new trees on the perimeter of the back of the installation by the helicopter pad. Chad Cloutier, assistant project manager at PCSI, and his team planted the trees to beautify the landscape and to fill in the gaps in the tree line.
“We are just helping out the environment,” said Cloutier. “It adds to the landscape and beauty of the property. We are just trying to fill what was taken out in the past.”
The event was slated to include a base clean-up that ended up getting postponed from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4 due to Hurricane Florence.