By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The importance of trees is an underlying theme in the 2012 movie "The Lorax," based on a children's book by Dr. Suess. The importance of trees gained local attention after the July 16 storm damaged or destroyed thousands of trees in Great Bend. Area business owners are responding. Logan Garrett contacted Jeremy Elliott and Operation Lorax: Great Bend was born. Elliott said some $7,000 has been donated so far in an effort to replace some of the trees.
"I've gotten with a couple of other business owners and some other private investors that are going to be donating some money toward purchasing some 7-10 gallon trees," he said. "We're hoping to get 200-250 trees we can donate to those that have lost trees in the last couple of storms. We're losing a lot of trees but we don't see a lot of trees being replanted."
Plans are still in the works, but Elliott hopes to have several International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) certified instructors provide a short course on how to properly plant and care for trees. The courses could begin as soon as this fall, and those who complete the course would receive a new tree to plant.
"A lot of these trees that have blown over and that have been damaged, it's because they were planted improperly at the very beginning of their lives," Elliott said. "Even now, we do a lot of work on newer trees that are struggling because they weren't planted properly."
Elliott has reached out to various nurseries to see what type of trees would be available for later this fall. Anyone with questions about the program or that would like to donate, can email operationlorax.greatbend@gmail.com.