GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) – One university here in the East makes it their mission to perform a community-based act to honor Earth Day.

East Carolina University students, faculty, staff, and the North Carolina Forest Service came together to plant a tree for Earth Day.

This is an annual event the school participates in every year. This year ECU was presented the Tree Campus Higher Education Award again by the NC Forest Service, which is given to colleges and universities that help develop healthy trees with student involvement. ECU is one more than 400 schools in the nation to receive this recognition.

According to the official Earth Day site, planting trees has a bunch of benefits for the community, including providing shade and cool air to cities. But there are plenty more.

“Stormwater mitigation and how trees can affect that and since ECU is such a big campus, that affects us but it also affects Greenville as a whole so that’s another important factor to it,” ECU sustainability outreach specialist, Kim Fox said.

ECU students that are part of a program called “sustainabila-bee’s” were there to bring awareness of the impact pollinators like bees and butterflies have on our community.

“Native pollinators, native bees, native butterflies, native beetles, they are just as important, and they are so often overlooked so of course butterflies aren’t as often overlooked as some other things but since we tend to focus on bees we decided to bring in other pollinators that are essential to our survival,” ECU student, Erica Henry said.

ReLeaf, an organization that focuses on urban forestry such as benefiting city spaces also took part.