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Community Health Network employees to plant trees October 6 for Super Bowl Legacy Project; 160 volunteers expected to plant hundreds of trees at Interstate 70-Emerson Avenue interchange

For release on October 04, 2011

Indianapolis, IN---About 160 Community Health Network employees will create a Super Bowl legacy on October 6 by planting 400 trees, contributing toward the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee’s goal of planting 2,012 trees before Super Bowl XLVI. In partnership with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB) and volunteers completing Eli Lilly and Company Global Day of Service projects, Community volunteers will help transform the barren Interstate 70-Emerson Avenue interchange, near Community Hospital East. The Community volunteers will wear gold t-shirts and plant trees from noon to 4 p.m.

Community joins 30 other organizations for the 2011 Lilly Global Day of Service event. Four Indianapolis corridors will be revitalized during the one-day project, which aims to beautify Indianapolis, improve community spaces and promote wellness. Community’s volunteers will dig and move dirt, put trees in place and move mulch in the areas around the exit ramps. With support from Brickman Group, a national landscaping company with a strong Indiana presence, Community has also made a commitment to water and maintain the trees once they are in the ground.

The 2,012th tree will be planted October 6 at 11:00 a.m. during the Global Day of Service at Pogues Run Art and Nature Park. This will help two community organizations meet long-term goals. Once in place, it will be:

  • The 2,012th tree planted in the “2,012 Trees by 2012” tree-planting initiative –a partnership between KIB and the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee
  • The 30,000th tree planted by KIB in the NeighborWoods program, which has the goal of planting 100,000 trees in Indianapolis by 2017

“This is a great opportunity to bring our employees together to help beautify Indianapolis and promote green space for healthy living,” said Bryan Mills, president and CEO of Community Health Network. “While helping create a welcoming environment for visitors to the city, our employees will permanently transform a large outdoor space, which is so important to our east side neighbors, as many of them live and workclose to this interchange.”

The green space will foster healthy outdoor living and have a lasting community and environmental impact for years to come. Being in a natural environment for as little as 10 minutes daily can reduce stress, blood pressure and improve mental health. In addition, living near parks or woodlands improves health and extends life span, regardless of a person’s social class or income. Community is committed to improving the health and well-being of Central Indiana residents.

“Without partners, such as Community Health Network, it wouldn’t be possible to complete such a tremendous amount of work in a single day,” said Rob Smith, president, Lilly Foundation. “It’s impressive—and fun—to have hundreds of employees from two of the area’s largest employers working together to improve public spaces in our city.”

The tree planting project supports Community Health Network’s Serve 360° employee volunteerism initiative, launched this past summer. Serve360º was named to reflect Community’s way of completing the circle, collectively giving back to the people and neighborhoods that gave birth to the network and continue to support it. The effort offers Community employees a way to live the network’s mission, demonstrating a deep commitment to the communities they serve, enhancing health and well-being while cultivating the spirit of volunteer service.

About Community Health Network

Ranked among the nation’s most integrated healthcare systems, Community Health Network is Central Indiana’s leader in access to innovative and compassionate healthcare services, where and when patients need them—in hospitals, in convenient health pavilions and doctor’s offices, in the workplace, at schools, in the home and online. As a non-profit health system with multiple sites of care and affiliates throughout Indiana, Community’s full continuum of care integrates hundreds of physicians, acute care and specialty hospitals, surgery centers, physician offices, home care services, walk-in care centers and employer health services. To put the needs and the convenience of patients first, Community pioneers advanced treatments and world-class health information technologies, with a focus on ease of access to exceptional care.

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Lynda de Widt, Media Relations
Lynda de Widt
Media Relations