Lifetime workers plant flora but pull Dyers woad at Ogden Nature Center

June 4, 2013

By Clayton Leuba
Standard Examiner

OGDEN, UTAH — Employees of Clearfield-based Lifetime Products toiled together Saturday for the company’s eighth annual community service project.

More than 1,100 employees participated, making improvements to the Ogden Nature Center, said Tonnie Dixon, the public relations and communications manager at Lifetime Products.

“We love giving back to the community where we live and work,” Dixon said. “It’s amazing to see just what our employees are able to do.”

The primary task the volunteers faced at the nature center was the removal of Dyer’s woad — as well as other noxious and invasive plant species — from the center’s 152 acres.

“We pulled Dyer’s woad like crazy,” Dixon said.

The fight against invasive plant species has been an issue for the nature center for years, said Jenny Frame, the center’s volunteer coordinator.

“It’s been an ongoing battle. (Dyer’s woad) is an invasive weed, and it kind of just takes over everything. It chokes out all the good stuff and leaves only Dyer’s woad.”

In addition to clearing these invasive plants, volunteers painted and stained fences and buildings, planted flora and worked on other projects in the center’s buildings.

Frame said the center relies on volunteers to accomplish much of the work necessary to maintain the area and said she was impressed with the turnout from Lifetime Products.

“This is the largest single effort we have ever seen. They got done in two hours what we wouldn’t be able to do all summer.”

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