Merry Christmas and happy holidays! This year, we encourage you to donate your natural Christmas trees to the West Carteret Student Ecology Association from January 1st to January 7th of 2024. They will be collecting these trees to donate to the Fort Macon State Park. The park uses these leftover trees on the beach to protect the dunes from sand erosion. According to Randy Newman, the park superintendent, as of 2021, over 80,000 trees have been donated and recycled through Fort Macon (Shutak, 2021). This Christmas, give the gift of environmental protection by donating your trees to the Student Ecology Association to help promote sand dune stabilization! Maybe even consider joining the club yourself!