Project EverGreen is known for giving back to military families with its GreenCare and SnowCare for Troops programs, and now it has expanded its complimentary services to help those serving on the healthcare front lines.
“The people that volunteer with our program a lot of them want to give back to the military in their community, but they always doing so much more,” says Ki Matsko, program director of GreenCare/SnowCare for Troops. “They’re just salt of the earth folk that just want to take care of members in their community. Sometimes if you provide those people with a platform to do so a lot of people will step up and participate and during this pandemic we just thought how can we as an organization help and this is what we had come up with.”
Photo: Project EverGreen
Matsko says they first reached out to all the volunteers that were not currently matched with a military family to let them know about this opportunity.
“We realized that there were other volunteers, and some of who came up with the idea, who were actually currently matched, but still had openings and some that were matched but were willing to free up an extra spot for a healthcare worker so then we sent it out to all of our GreenCare for Troops volunteers asking them to participate,” Matsko says.
Currently, there are about 20 volunteers are helping healthcare workers, but some of the volunteers are helping multiple healthcare families. Paul Fraynd, co-owner of Sun Valley Landscaping based in Omaha, Nebraska, is one of the volunteers who is helping both military and healthcare worker families right now.
“We are currently serving a few families with free lawn mowing services through Project Evergreen’s Greencare for Troops program,” Fraynd says. “We are working with Ki and team to add some additional ‘Healthcare Heroes’ to the list of families that we can help take one thing off the ‘honey-do list’ and give them a sigh of relief. This pandemic will be a long road, so we are excited to find more and more ways to give back to those that protect us.”
Matsko says volunteers can use social media and their community to request nominations for healthcare workers in need. It is up to the volunteers to decide which families to take on. Volunteers would provide healthcare workers with complimentary lawn care services through October 1.
“It’s really just about doing what we can to support people in our community that are taking care of us,” Matsko says. “Whether it be the front lines of the war or the front lines of COVID-19, it’s how we can give back.”
For anyone interested in getting involved in the project, they can go register at ProjectEvergreen.org.
