Cemex Lyons volunteers to plant 600 trees at Cal-Wood Education Center
Sep. 8—As restoration and mitigation efforts continue in the wake of the 2020 Calwood Fire, the Cal-Wood Education Center is receiving a helping hand from the Cemex cement plant in Lyons.
On Sunday, around 50 Cemex employees and their family members will visit the education center near Jamestown to plant roughly 600 trees. The Colorado blue spruces, ponderosa pines, chokecherries and more will play a role in strengthening the half of the property that was impacted by the fire.
"We want to restore the forest so that it's more manageable and so that, in 100 years, a single fire won't kill every tree," said Raphael Salgado, Cal-Wood Education Center executive director.
Cemex has been supporting Cal-Wood's recovery efforts since 2021. Sunday's planting event marks the largest one held at the facility so far, with about half of Cemex Lyons' total employees getting involved.
"We would typically do projects with 10 folks from Cemex, and we'd maybe do 50 trees," said Michael Clausen, Cemex USA corporate social responsibility specialist, of previous Cal-Wood collaborations. "But we had the opportunity this year to be more ambitious."
The Cal-Wood Education Center provides mountain-based environmental education programs and retreats for youths and adults. Jeff Hohensee, Cal-Wood's director of development and communications, said Sunday's event gives participants an opportunity to bond with the land.
"When someone plants a tree, they have a relationship with that tree for the rest of their life," Hohensee said. "And that's really what Cal-Wood's work is all about, to plant hope ... and work together as a community."
Salgado said Cemex was one of the first community partners to reach out to Cal-Wood after the fire and ask how they could help. In addition to the volunteer tree planting events, Cemex donates coyote willows that grow at the Lyons plant to the education center to Cal-Wood. The willows help control erosion, which was Cal-Wood's primary goal in the immediate aftermath of the fire.
"After all these years of serving the community, we learned that the community really appreciates what we do," Salgado said. "It just feels so good to get this help."
Cemex Lyons also has an "environmental education area" on site for local students to visit and learn about a wide variety of trees, shrubs and pollinator flowers.
"That education piece is very important for us, so there's a natural connection with what Cal-Wood is doing," Clausen said.
Erik Estrada, Cemex Lyons' plant manager, said Cemex will continue to support Cal-Wood in the years going forward.
"We believe that this kind of project, this kind of volunteer participation, is important because this is our house, and this is our home," Estrada said. "This is why we are sitting right here at the entrance of the Rockies. We're going to take advantage of that."
