BUCKHANNON – Create Buckhannon is doing their part to make the city just a bit brighter.

The grassroots, volunteer organization has started planting redbud and dogwood trees around the community for the second consecutive year.

Buck Edwards with Create Buckhannon said the group intends to plant 15 new trees this year. In fact, they’ve already planted some in front of the Dollar Tree Thursday, April 23.

“I love springtime and I really like redbud and dogwood trees,” Edwards said. “When I see them along the interstate, it just really brightens up your day when you see those driving up and down the highway. We have so many open spaces here in Buckhannon we thought, ‘well, why don’t we turn our town into a dogwood and redbud town?’ That way, we would see them all the time in town in the spring and then hopefully, someday we’ll have enough to where it’s actually a tourist attraction, where people will come here to see them.”

He said they also want to plant about eight trees on the high wall where you get on Route 33 to go towards Elkins.

“We want to plant trees all the way up and down 33 within the city limits, and we have permission from the highways department to plant in certain areas, so we have some plans for that,” Edwards said.

He said the trees they planted last year at the dog park and in front of the Public Service building are already blooming and starting to bloom.

“The ones we planted this morning are blooming, and the ones that are going up on the high wall, it’ll be a few years before they bloom because those are smaller trees, but we plan to plant a lot of trees there,” Edwards said.

Create Buckhannon is accepting donations to help purchase the trees, and Edwards said checks may be sent to Mel Stemple at the Upshur County Development Authority Office at P.O. Box 991 Buckhannon, WV 26201.

“We’re taking donations, and several people have donated,” he said. “Last year we had a lot of donations and this year we’ve had several. We love doing projects like this to beautify the community and pull people together to do good things like this, so this is really right up our alley.”