By CHRISTINE BOATWRIGHT / Staff Writer

CHELSEA – The City of Chelsea fully intends to remain a “tree city” by celebrating its 12th annual Chelsea Arbor Day Celebration Feb. 26.

The celebration in Chelsea Recreation Park, 2966 Alabama 39, will begin at 11 a.m., and a drawing for prizes will take place from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

“We’ll be giving away free seedlings, and we’ll have drawings for really nice prizes,” said Chelsea Tree Commission member Judy Cain. “We’ll have the mayor and most of the city council there. We’ll have a lot of information about trees, why they’re good for us and how to plant them.”

The Chelsea Tree Commission is giving away a variety of free seedlings, including dogwoods, redbuds, persimmons and a variety of oaks.

“Hunters like the oak seedlings we provide because they provide food for deer; they eat off the nuts and even the bark,” Cain said.

Cain said Arbor Day is important to not only the community of Chelsea, but also the planet.

“Trees provide a really important benefit for the earth and the people, but unfortunately, we cut down a lot of our forests, so the benefit decreases for us,” she said. “We want to save as many trees as we can, but we know some clearing needs to occur. We encourage people to plant trees even if they need to clear for a house.”

The Arbor Day Foundation considers the City of Chelsea a tree city. The city maintains a tree commission council to retain this distinction and works to continuously plant new trees each year.

Other members of the council include chairperson Katie Griffith, Mavis Esferson, Sharon Johnson and Jim Harper.