Rotary Club of Pune University carried out their second Tree Planting on Saturday, 13th September 2014 at Ghotawde village near Pirangut. Treasurer Rtn. Jagdish Kuber who was on an exploration mission, came across a very enlightened group of village leaders here, who not only wanted Tree Planting but also educational facilities like RDEP. Following this discovery, our Club formed a Committee of members keenly associated with environment, especially trees, to survey the location.. And that brought to the fore, Rtn. Bharati Barhate’s love for trees. Having come to know that the village would require lots of trees, she arranged to get a large number of saplings, as she has done before. In this stage, she arranged to deliver 300 saplings to Ghotawde village. These saplings of 20 different varieties included Pangara, Pipal, Limbora, Neem, Jambhul, Tamarind, Katesawar, Beda, Chivan and many more. RCPU club members Treasurer Jagdish, Director – Service Projects Satish and PP Pradip and Rekha Patil were the other enthusiastic participants in the exercise of planting trees. Traveling to the site with President Dileep and First Lady Shobhana, the team was pleasantly surprised to see that many school students were ready for the work. They had already prepared pits for planting, and were raring to go. As soon as the saplings were received the students dashed off to collect and take them to the field. Here lot of planting was done at the open field in the school premises, followed by plating more saplings in the 18 acre pasture. After the tree planting work, Club members were felicitated for having come to help the village, while President Dileep thanked the village for giving them an opportunity to help restore nature. While speaking to the school children and Panchayat members, we came to know that one of the school toppers had become the village Sarpanch last year. The villagers have adopted a clever strategy of protecting their lands by planting trees. What was planted by them in the area 3 years ago, have now grown into fruiting trees of mango, chikoo and custard apple. Consequently, the land remains protected and will not get converted into a concrete jungle. RCPU members also visited a primary school in the neigbouring village Materwadi, where a group of extremely dedicated teachers have worked wonders with the students. It was a pleasure to see the tiny tots developed into bright, bold and expressive students.