Gifting a tree to celebrate Valentine’s Day

Odisha Channel Bureau Bhubaneswar, Feb 14: This Valentine’s Day, the volunteers of the city-based Bakul Foundation were on roads with decorated rose saplings packed with fancy baskets and eco-friendly wrappers.Spreading the message of gifting trees, the volunteers were seen motivating the passersby to buy Plants and gift their beloved ones on this Valentine’s Day.”If we promise to be in love for lifetime, then why not a gift which grows and stays forever,” said Sulagna Sivaprava, a volunteer of the Foundation.“We have set up two stalls in the city and also 10 different florists have joined hands with us to spread this cause and packed saplings are available with them as well,” added Sulagna.“A total of 200 plants have been sold wince we launched the campaign this morning.We are receiving orders for more and we will keep spreading the word of Gifting Trees.Our basic idea is to bring a cultural change where people will think of buying a sapling instead of gift or a flower bouquet at the time of gifting,” said Alok Mohanty, another volunteer.This Tree for Free is an initiative under the My Tree Campaign of Bakul, which aims to create an emotional connect between individuals and trees by promoting individual ownership of trees.The main objective of the My Tree Campaign is to promote gifting and plantation of trees as a cultural practice where it becomes a part of the everyday lives of people. The campaign, which started in 2009, has many components through which the idea of gifting trees is promoted.There is a campaign on social media in which hundreds of people have profile pictures with trees.Environmental film festivals and workshops have been organised in schools, colleges and apartments to create awareness, and most importantly, to suggest how individually, each one of us can contribute to address the problem of climate change.Tree for Free is an attempt to break the inertia that people have in planting trees.It comes from a realisation that many want to plant trees but they keep procrastinating.