Rotaract, BBA and MIX join forces to blaze a trail at Red Mountain Park

Published On: 10.21.15 |

By: Michael Tomberlin

Rotaract, BBA and MIX join forces to blaze a trail at Red Mountain Park

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Above: Volunteers with Rotaract, OnBoard Birmingham and MIX worked together to clear a section of Red Mountain Park. (Meg McKinney/Alabama NewsCenter)

Rotaract, BBA OnBoard and MIX help clear trail at Red Mountain Park from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

A group that included millennials to the middle-aged bonded with folding saws and a wood chipper at Red Mountain Park recently.

Three organizations of young professionals joined forces on Saturday to help grow the park’s trail system.

“Today we’ve got our Onboard Birmingham group, we’ve got the Rotaract Club of Birmingham and we’ve got MIX, a new initiative with Alabama Power,” said Waymond Jackson, vice president of Workforce Development with the Birmingham Business Alliance. “Everybody is here helping with the Red Mountain Park forest restoration project pulling Chinese privet.”

Mary Meadows Livingston with Porter White & Company is the director of service for Rotaract. She said the organization tries to vary its projects, from working with children, the elderly and the homeless to hands-on work projects like at Red Mountain Park.

“We’re always looking to plug in to where the needs are,” she said. “We try to target a variety of different work projects that help connect our members more deeply with the community.”

Volunteers with Rotaract, OnBoard Birmingham and MIX worked together to clear a section of Red Mountain Park. (Meg McKinney/Alabama NewsCenter)

There is a need to keep growing Red Mountain Park, officials said.

“Red Mountain Park is one of the largest urban parks in America. It’s over 78 percent larger than Central Park in New York City,” said Mike Mahon, president of Friends of Red Mountain Park. “We’ve got 14 miles of trails with plans to go to 20 in the very near future.”

David Dionne, executive director of Red Mountain Park, said he is encouraging new and old organizations to be involved in creating the new park.

“MIX and Alabama Power have been helping to drive volunteers to Red Mountain Park,” Dionne said. “This is a park that we’re building in the community but we’re building the community into the park – using people and their energy and their enthusiasm and their excitement about this project to help actually create the park.”

Alabama Power kicked off MIX at an event at Trim Tab Brewing Company last week and the Alabama Power Foundation donated $10 to Friends of Red Mountain Park for every person who attended.