ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - One of St. Louis' famous gems just got a little bit better thanks to the help of St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Paul DeJong. On his off day, he helped kick off reforestation efforts in the urban park by planting hundreds of trees.
Earlier this season it was announced that the 28-year-old partner with Players for the Planet – a company founded by former MLB outfielder Chris Dickerson – and global reforestation company One Tree Planted. They will be planting 110 trees for every one of DeJong's extra-base hits this season.
With 19 home runs, eight doubles and a triple, he's up to 3,080 trees planted, with six more games to increase the total.
He got the planting started on his off day Monday in St. Louis, working with Forest Park Forever to plant the first of more than 200 trees in a section of Forest Park’s Nature Reserve Successional Forest site. His very proud mom was even on hand to support him:
Paul DeJong even donated $5,000 to support the forest restoration work on the near acre of land in Forest Park.
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You can go see DeJong's work right now in Forest Park, located near the corner of Wells and Carr Ln Drives just west of the Jewel Box. It's marked by a yellow star in the map below:
If you want to help, you can join DeJong by donating at Cardinals.com/trees.
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