A local business is celebrating Earth Day with a large contribution. Parisleaf, a local Gainesville design and printing firm, donated 1,000 trees to a Maryland-based agroforestry charity called Trees for the Future.
Parisleaf online community manager Jen Coleman said the business chose to donate to the charity because it plants fruit-bearing trees in low resource areas that suffer from deforestation and unsustainable agricultural systems.
Parisleaf recently won an American Advertising award for working with its client, Greenpeace — a non-governmental environmental organization. Coleman said the company donated the trees after receiving the award as a way to celebrate the achievement.
Maria Espinosa, a 20-year-old UF public relations junior, said Earth Day is a day to celebrate natural resources.
“It’s a way for us to appreciate what we have on Earth and realize there are ways to help conserve it,” she said.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 4/22/2014 under the headline "Local design business donates 1,000 trees"]