Team Friends helps beautify Indiana Township

If you’re traveling north on Saxonburg Boulevard and need to stop for the traffic signal at Route 910 in Indiana Township, take a look to your right.

Beautifying the intersection is one of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s 130 community gardens across the region, sponsored by Eichenlaub Landscape Inc., headquartered about half a mile away.

Eichenlaub employees joined with members of Team Friends, a nonprofit founded by retired Fox Chapel Area School District teacher Susan Cataldi, to plant flowers that will add plenty of color to the garden when they bloom.

“It is in our mission statement to give back to our community and the world in which we live. And it’s so amazing to see all of these individuals with disabilities give back and partake, because it’s so important to them,” Cataldi said. “It fills their bucket. It fills my bucket to be able to do this, and it’s an honor to work with Eichenlaub. They’re wonderful people.”

The May 29 endeavor at Saxonburg-910 marks the third collaborative project between the company and Team Friends, which Cataldi formed to provide adults who have intellectual disabilities with opportunities for social interaction and inclusion after they finish high school.

Dan Eichenlaub, president of the company that bears his name, is happy to help team members with fulfilling their interest in helping the community at large.

“They’re not out there saying, ‘Give me a handout,’ ” he said. “They’re actually giving a hand in, while helping them to build their confidence and their contribution to society.”

Several took time on a cloudy afternoon to do their part on behalf of roadside ambience — and by extension, people waiting for the light to turn green — by installing plants supplied by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

Eichenlaub Landscape donated materials and labor, including the president, himself, and general manager Ryan Hanley. The company, founded by sons of the late Carl and Anne Eichenlaub, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

“The real beginning was during the Agnes hurricane in 1972. My brothers and I were getting ready to go off to college, and my dad said, ‘Here’s how much money I have. You’re going to have to earn a lot of it on your own,’ ” Eichenlaub recalled. “We went around cleaning up trees from that storm and realized that we could make a lot more money by working together.”

Two years later, they formed a partnership. Today, the company specializes in premium services for residences, including design, installation, water features and irrigation, and maintenance of properties.

Eichenlaub is a longtime supporter of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, a private nonprofit conservation organization founded in 1932. The group launched its series of regional community gardens in the 1970s.

“Steel was dying and times were changing, and it was a great way to bring people together to have pride for their neighborhoods. And to this day, they’re still planted by volunteers,” Eichenlaub said, with the number of helpers nearing 11,000 annually.

Among many other honors, he received the Penn State College of Agriculture’s Outstanding Alumni Award in 2022.

“I really appreciate what the environment does for us,” he said, “and I’m into taking care of it.”

An Indiana Township native and Fox Chapel Area High School graduate, Eichenlaub met Cataldi while his children were students there.

Team Friends evolved from a small group of folks who first got together in January 2015 to the point where it now has chapters in Allegheny, Armstrong and Westmoreland counties. The nonprofit’s annual fundraiser is scheduled for Sept. 10 at Narcisi Winery, 4578 Gibsonia Road, West Deer.

For details, visit www.teamfriends.org.