NFL Green Teams Up with Local Partners and Military Veterans for Beautification Project and Clean Up at Veterans Memorial Park

TAMPA, Fla. – (November 10, 2020) – In honor of military veterans and in advance of Veterans Day tomorrow, a pollinator garden has been created at Veterans Memorial Park in Tampa with the help of active duty military from MacDill Airforce Base and local veterans who assisted with the project. The planting and cleanup of the park is one of numerous Super Bowl community greening projects being implemented in the Tampa Bay area by NFL Green in partnership with Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, Hillsborough County Parks and Recreation, NFL partners Verizon, Oikos Triple Zero, Castrol®, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee Sustainability Program presented by Tampa Electric.

On Thursday, Nov. 5, military volunteers helped to plant nearly 150 flowering plants and bushes to attract butterflies and other important pollinators to the garden located in front of the Veterans Resource Center on the grounds of Veterans Memorial Park and LeRoy Collins, Jr. Veterans Museum in Tampa. Garden designers David Crawley and Jessica Soleyn were on hand to assist with the planting. In addition to beautifying the area, the pollinator garden will provide food to pollinators in the form of pollen and nectar, helping to ensure their survival as they play the critical role of pollinating crops for continued fruit and vegetable production.

Hillsborough County leads the state of Florida in military veteran population and Florida is number two in the nation for number of veterans. Veterans Memorial Park is a popular gathering spot for veterans and their families and the site of ceremonies honoring veterans of all eras. The Veterans Resource Center onsite connects veterans and their dependents to earned VA benefits and programs free of charge.

NFL Green, the National Football League’s sustainability program, is working with partners to create a green legacy in the Super Bowl host community of Tampa Bay. Projects have already been implemented to create and plant sand dunes to help prevent erosion and protect against storm damage at Picnic Island, plant trees at the Boys & Girls Club in Wimauma, remove invasive species and plant native plants and trees at Lowry Park and McKay Bay Nature Park. Additional “greening” projects are planned in the months leading up to Super Bowl to restore mangroves, create community gardens and plant trees.

NFL Green and its partners are also working with Force Blue, a group of retired special ops veterans, The Florida Aquarium and the University of Miami on an innovative Super Bowl environmental project to continue restoration of Florida’s Coral Reef. For Super Bowl LIV 100 corals were planted to restore a site off Miami’s coast in honor of the NFL’s 100^th season and America’s military veterans. Under the leadership of Force Blue, the reef restoration project has been expanded for Super Bowl LV to become 100 Yards of Hope, a football field-sized coral restoration project utilizing corals grown at The Florida Aquarium’s Center for Conservation campus and the University of Miami’s (UM) Rosenstiel School. Force Blue divers recently joined scientists from the University of Miami’s Rescue a Reef program, The Florida Aquarium, Frost Science and SECORE International to plant more than a thousand staghorn corals (a threatened species) from UM, and 100 two-year-old juvenile staghorn coral colonies from The Florida Aquarium (genetically unique individuals that may help unlock answers to coral resilience in the face of a changing climate). Thousands of mountainous star coral larvae (another threatened species) reared by SECORE and Frost Science were also added to the reef.

This coral restoration work marked the largest effort to date, with more than 20 divers and 100 dives logged between three days and three vessels. The corals were transplanted evenly between three plots, establishing the north and south endzones and center field of the football field sized reef. The expanded 100 Yards of Hope project is utilizing the best available restoration techniques to accelerate the recovery of key coral species and build a blueprint for saving Florida’s Coral Reef.

A diverse group of partners has teamed up with Force Blue and the National Football League for the Super Bowl LV coral restoration project. They include the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Program, University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School and Rescue a Reef Program, The Florida Aquarium, Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science, the Tampa Bay Super Bowl LV Host Committee Sustainability Program presented by Tampa Electric, NFL partners Verizon, Oikos Triple Zero, Castrol®, Tervis and others as government, public and private partners work together to restore the national treasure that is Florida’s Coral Reef.

For more information visit nfl.com/salute