In light of Essential Earth Day and National Volunteer Week occurring in the month of April, Aqua Pennsylvania employees volunteered to better the communities they served with a major volunteer day.

Essential Earth Day is a month-long celebration in April of volunteer events, donations, and employee education opportunities. The activities center around Aqua’s mission to protect and provide Earth’s most essential resources and improve the communities it serves.

Essential team members participate in dozens of volunteer events across our footprint in partnership with local environmental organizations. The activities include something for everyone: cleaning up litter from streams, planting trees and gardens, marking storm drains, and enhancing outdoor recreation sites. Essential also hosts several guest speakers to present on environmental topics so team members can take the environmental mission home, and the Essential Foundation awards most of its environmental grants during the initiative.

“Earth Day is a powerful reminder of the vital link between safe drinking water, essential resources, and the well-being of our planet and communities,” said Essential Utilities Chairman and CEO Chris Franklin. “By launching our initiatives on World Water Day, we demonstrate our unwavering commitment to improving the lives of the people we serve. It’s a natural fit for a company dedicated to environmental stewardship all year.”   

On Apr. 18, Aqua employees participated in forest maintenance, preserve management, and grounds work. Site and volunteer locations included the following:

• Garrett Williamson, partnering with CRC Watershed Association: Garrett Williamson is a non-profit, 240-acre farm, school, and camp in Newtown Square. It was endowed in 1910 by a prescient benefactor, Elizabeth Garrett, to support financially needy children and single women.
• Hildacy Preserve, partnering with Natural Lands: Hildacy Preserve is all that remains of a 300-acre land grant from William Penn to a local tanner and his family. The Preserve was once prized for its mature oak trees, but the land was slowly cleared for timber and agriculture. The former farm fields at Hildacy have been converted to meadows dominated by native grasses such as big and little bluestem, Indian grass, and switchgrass. Native grass meadows provide valuable habitat for many bird species that are in decline across their ranges. Eastern Bluebirds, American Kestrels, Indigo Buntings, and Red-Shouldered Hawks have all nested at Hildacy in recent years.

“I’m so thrilled to be here celebrating Earth Day,” said Colleen Arnold, President at Aqua, who volunteered at Garrett Williamson. “Source water protection is one of the key hallmarks for us in terms of maintaining water quality.”

Additional Essential Earth Day activities included Aqua’s NJ team donating and planting four maple trees at Veterans Park in Berkeley Township, while the Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina teams all participated in trash cleanups in partnership with Brandywine Red Clay Alliance, Marion Tallgrass Trail, and Cape Fear Botanical Garden. There were also various other volunteer efforts across Aqua’s eight-state footprint.

Essential Utilities is grateful for all the volunteer employees, its partner organizations, and the Earth Day Leads (Krista Seng, Lead of Corporate Giving and Community Affairs, and Julia Homa, Corporate Giving and Community Affairs Specialist).

Learn more at Aqua. For more than 135 years, Aqua has been protecting and providing Earth’s most essential resource, water. Today, Aqua provides water and wastewater services to over three million people in eight states.