The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
DELAYED CELEBRATION
City officials, students stay grounded with Arbor Day event
ONEIDA, N.Y. » Oneida Mayor Helen Acker and City Recreation Director Luke Griff led a pint-sized crew of tree enthusiasts to celebrate Arbor Day at Veterans Memorial Park Friday afternoon.
Arbor Day is officially April 29, and Griff had rescheduled the event because of rainy weather, but the rain delay did not dampen the spirits of the fifth-grade students from North Broad Street Elementary School.
The students were part of two classes chaperoned by Erica Morgan. They answered questions by Griff before planting a pair of trees in the park.
“Does anyone know what trees are good for?” Griff asked.
“Oxygen,” several students asked.
“Nice,” he said. “Any other reasons trees are good for us?”
Several half-answers, then Griff said, “Shade. When it is hot out trees in the yard give shade and people don’t run their air conditioning as often.”
The students were on hand to learn about trees and to watch Griff and members of Oneida’s public works department plant the trees. The new trees would replace three ash trees, which had been eaten by beetles last fall and had to be replaced.
“Just a few months ago those trees were as good as new, and then beetles ate them up. They are Emerald ash bore beetles, and are what is known as an invasive species,” Griff said. “These two new trees will
help give shade to our playground equipment.”
Griff lifted a tree off of a backhoe and put the first tree in the ground. A student asked what the brown bag around the tree’s roots was, and Griff explained.
“That’s burlap,” he said. “That will deteriorate once the tree is in the ground.”
Several of Morgan’s students helped with the planting.
“I love trees,” a student named Abdul said. “I like climbing on them.”
“I like trees,” a student named Annabelle said. “But I’m not totally into them.”
Oneida has celebrated Arbor Day for 32 years. They are an official part of the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree City, USA program. To participate in the program a municipality must meet four requirements. They include a tree department, a tree care ordinance, a forestry program with a minimum budget of two dollars per capita, and an Arbor Day observance and proclamation.
Trees produce oxygen through photosynthesis, a process that means “putting together with light.” It happens in the cells of plants and within tiny bodies called chloroplasts. These chloroplasts are located in the cytoplasm of leaves and they contain the green coloring matter called chlorophyll.
Trees also trap pollutants in their leaves, a process called “sequestering,” and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it. They help cool the earth, as well.
The word arbor comes from “arbre,” the French word for tree. In 1872 J. Sterling Morgan approached the Nebraska Board of Agriculture about establishing a day celebrating trees. In response, Nebraska residents planted over one million trees in a single day. Arbor Day is now celebrated worldwide each April 29.
“The city of Oneida recognizes the value and importance of planting trees, and knows that wherever trees are planted, it will increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of businesses, and beautify our community,” Acker said.