179th Gives Back for Earth Day Published June 9, 2011 By Airman 1st Class Stephaine Carroll 179th Airlift Wing/Public Affiars MANSFIELD, Ohio -- On Wednesday, May 11, members from the 179th Airlift Wing spent the day around Richland county working on different projects for Earth Day. It was a beautiful, warm sunny day and enlisted members, officers, and even commanders spent time planting flowers, spreading mulch, and cleaning barns. For this year's Earth Day, volunteers partnered with the North End Community Improvement Collaborative, or the NECIC, to help with their community gardening program. Such new projects involved things like building handicap accessible flower beds at Richland New Hope. Earth Day volunteers worked to create three new gardens and prepare the five existing gardens for this year's planting. All together, there were 14 different projects at 13 sites in Mansfield, Ontario, Lexington, Bellville, and Shelby. Seventy-seven total volunteers came out to help elementary schools, the Raemelton equestrian center, and the different community gardens programs. The guard members worked with children and other members of the community. The children were very excited to be helping the environment and didn't hesitate to get their hands dirty. Many of the guard members got to spend the day digging in the dirt side by side with their own children. Earth Day is an annual event for the 179th Airlift Wing and this was their twelfth year participating. With the new missions the base has taken on, participation was down, but base commanders are hoping to see more members reach out in the upcoming years. There are always many different Earth Day projects to take part in and volunteering is a fun, and rewarding way to give back to the community.