Safety tree stays green so far
Published 10:32 pm Wednesday, December 13, 2017
- The Pilot Club of Suffolk’s Safety Tree has stayed green so far this month. The Suffolk Police Department replaces a green bulb with a red one in the event a traffic fatality occurs during December.
Green and red may be the traditional colors of Christmas, but there’s one Christmas tree in Suffolk that everyone hopes stays green all month.
The Pilot Club of Suffolk’s Safety Tree has managed to stay green for nearly half of the month, and the club hopes it will continue to stay that way.
The club does the safety tree annually to promote road safety during the holiday season. The tree, which stands at the Elks Lodge on West Constance Road, is lighted with green bulbs on Dec. 1. In the event there is a traffic fatality in Suffolk during the month of December, the Suffolk Police Department replaces a green bulb with a red one.
“We’ve made it half of the month almost, and we want to be sure we can go the whole month without a fatality,” said Leah Powell, projects coordinator for the Pilot Club of Suffolk.
The club has been doing the safety tree for 30-plus years, and only three or four of those Decembers have ended with a green tree, Powell said.
Powell thanked the Elks Lodge for hosting the tree and Curtis Mehalko of the Knights of Columbus for the donation of the tree.