MEDIA ADVISORY

From snap dragons to sunflowers, pumpkins to poppies, more than 9,000 plants will be put in beds at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Wednesday, May 24 during the Sixth Annual Campus Flower Planting Day. Volunteers are needed to grab their green thumbs and gardening tools to help plant pansies, petunias and sweet peas as a part of this yearly campus beautification effort, sponsored by the UAF College of Fellows.

A new park, sporting wooden picnic tables, plants and flowers, will be established in the Noatak Lot across from the Lola Tilly Commons for summer barbecues and student gatherings. Maple trees, watermelons, roses and other warm-climate plants will surround the Chapman building, taking advantage of the ground heated by utilidors running underneath the circumference of the building.

Students, faculty and staff and Fairbanks community members should meet at Constitution Hall or at the UA Museum beginning at 8:30 a.m. for plot assignments, tools and refreshments.

The event is organized by the UAF College of Fellows, a support group for UAF, to add color to the campus through an activity reminiscent of the school’s agricultural history. UAF physical plant employees will try to keep visitors– both the two and four legged kind– from eating the edible assortment, however. At the end of summer, the veggies will be harvested and donated to the Fairbanks Food Bank.

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CONTACT: College of Fellows Campus Planting Day Organizers Jim Matthews at (907) 474-3537 or Judy Kelliher at (907) 474-0021.

JCS/5-19-00/00-079ma