Medina keeps up Arbor Day tradition and plants nearly 70 trees

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 27 April 2024 at 7:27 am

Photos by Tom Rivers

MEDINA – Second graders at Oak Orchard School in Medina helped plant four trees Friday on North Avenue as part of an Arbor Day celebration in the village. These kids with shovels include Emma McGrath in blue sweater and Gabrielle Watts.

The four trees plants by the kids were “Northern Acclaim” varieties.

This group is in a second grade class taught by Jamie Brooks. Her students have helped with Arbor Day plantings for five years. They students look forward to it every year and it ties in with their science lessons.

“They are learning about the earth around them,” Brooks said. “It’s talking the classroom outside.”

Members of the second grade Glee Club at Oak Orchard Primary School sang three songs to help celebrate the tree planting an Earth Day. Here they are singing, “This Land Is Your Land.”

Andrea Busch, director of the Glee Club, leads them in singing from a stage on North Avenue, not far from the Lee-Whedon Memorial Library.

The group sang “This Land Is Your Land,” “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley, and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

Medina is planting 69 trees this spring with 44 new trees on North Avenue, South Avenue, West Avenue, Park Avenue and State Street Park. The other 25 trees are going in Boxwood Cemetery.

Medina Mayor Marguerite Sherman reads an Arbor Day Proclamation and shares her enthusiasm for the community’s commitment to trees.

Arbor Day 2024 marks the 17th year Medina’s urban forestry program has been a participant in the Tree City USA program of the National Arbor Day Foundation. The annual Tree City award honors Medina’s commitment to community forestry.

Many of the trees were paid for with donations through ReLeaf Medina. Click here for more information.

Mary Lewis, the Medina Tree Board chairwoman, said the Tree Board welcomes corporate and community sponsors to the tree-planting program.