Last year, the Butler Area Public Library helped plant about 500 trees throughout Butler County in the span of days.

The library was the biggest distributor in the country for the nationwide Neighborhood Forest project. Based in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., the project sends saplings to educational organizations around the nation to promote environmental awareness and education.

Tiffany Harkleroad, Butler youth services librarian, said the library again is a distributor for Neighborhood Forest, but she managed to get most of the libraries in the Butler County Federated Library System to work with the program this year.

“We were the first to get involved, and people all over the county registered with us,” Harkleroad said. “It came at the perfect time for people to have something really positive to do with their children that was free.”

Registration for the Neighborhood Forest is over for the year, and Harkleroad said the Butler library got about 180 registrations. Saplings are to be delivered around Earth Day on April 22, and recipients are meant to plant them on April 26, which is between Earth Day and Arbor Day.

In addition to libraries throughout Butler County, schools also got on board as distributors this year. Butler Catholic School has participated in the program in the past, and some trees on campus are products of the Neighborhood Forest.

“They can see it grow into a full-size tree, and they also understand to respect nature,” said Jennifer Friel, a fifth-grade teacher at Butler Catholic School. “And we use wood and cut down trees all the time, but if we don't replenish them we could run out.”

Scout troops also are distribution centers for aspiring planters.

Kathy Kline, extension services director for the North Trails Public Library, said the library is adding this program to its usual Earth Day commemorations to give children a long-term activity to learn from.

“The concept is the tree grows as the children grow,“ Kline said. ”It's just a good solution for taking care of our Earth and planting trees, giving back to the planet.“

According to the Neighborhood Forest’s website, more than 50,000 people throughout the country registered to get saplings this year. The estimated number surpasses past years by several thousand.

Harkleroad said trees come from local nurseries so distributors gets trees native to their region. The library got white pine saplings last year, but she is unsure of what kind of saplings it will get this time around.

“I figure we'll get the same or some form of pine this year,” Harkleroad said.

Friel also said some students will plant saplings in a garden at Butler Catholic, where students can watch the trees grow as they attend school. It all starts April 26, Neighborhood Forest Day.

“We’re trying to make it an Earth-friendly week so kids can really soak it in for Earth Day,” Friel said. “I was hoping to put them out there by the perimeter and watch them grow.”

The free saplings will be distributed April 22 to 30, according to Neighborhood Forest’s website. For more information, visit neighborhoodforest.org.