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OLPH 8th Graders Collect Christmas Trees For Recycling Service Project

Two Our Lady of Perpetual Help eighth-graders help unload Christmas trees at a Glenview park for their recent service project. (Photo submitted)

As part of their community service requirements, eighth-graders from Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in Glenview collected nearly 70 Christmas trees in an annual recycling effort last month.

“Due to the current uncertain times brought upon us by the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been increasingly difficult for the OLPH religious education eighth-graders to carry out their service work for their upcoming confirmation safely,” Bill Casey, a Glenview Park Board commissioner and OLPH parent said. “However, in an effort to complete a socially distant and COVID-19 safe service project, the eighth-grade religious education class collected over 70 Christmas trees around Glenview.”

Casey drove around the village picking up trees at predetermined locations with eighth-graders who loaded them into a U-Haul trailer Saturday, Jan. 13. Casey, OLPH parents, and others brought 585 trees to Glenview parks where park district and village crews collected the trees to be turned into mulch. In some years, trees are also dragged out onto the ice of Lake Glenview, falling into the man-made lake as the ice melts to create a habitat for fish.

Casey said the tree recycling by OLPH eighth-graders was aligned with the religious guidance of none other than Pope Francis. 

“This eco-friendly and COVID friendly service project is in accordance with Pope Francis’ second encyclical, ‘Laudato Si,’ in which he addresses to ‘every person on the planet’ for we all share a common home: the earth,” Casey said.

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