BY ANDI BLOUNT
Garden Club of the Lakes
Adults often extoll the virtues of trees. We know trees are beautiful, help clean the air, and have many other environmental values. But, when young children describe these benefits, you realize there’s hope for our world. Children spoke out at a recent Florida Arbor Day event at the Keystone Heights Elementary School.
To encourage awareness of the importance of trees, the Garden Club of the Lakes plans an annual educational program or tree planting.
This year, the Garden Club Arbor Day committee chair, Brenda Frysinger, reached out to the Keystone Heights Elementary School faculty to see if there was interest in a tree-planting ceremony.
Not only were they interested, they recruited the new 4-H director, Jennifer Jones, to involve her students. Then Frysinger contacted the City of Keystone Heights to ask Mayor Nina Rodenroth to issue a proclamation recognizing this holiday. City officials readily agreed to participate.
On Friday, January 19, Mayor Rodenroth read an official Florida Arbor Day proclamation as students and school faculty gathered with several Garden Club members to plant a maple tree on school grounds. The tree was donated by Cyndi and Randy Duncan, who brought the six-foot tree and planting materials to the school.
Several students read interesting facts about the benefits of planting trees, and they all enjoyed trying their hand at shoveling dirt into the hole. School staff had prepared the grounds.
Garden Club president Marian Norris helped the enthusiastic students add soil enrichment. Her theme for the club is to “Protect and respect our Earth and local environment through action, advocacy, and caring.”
The event was just one of many ongoing Garden Club of the Lakes projects. The group is a civic organization open to members of the Lake Region community. The club meets on the second Thursday of the month, September through May, at 10 a.m. at Faith Presbyterian Church, midway between Melrose and Keystone Heights on State Road 21. The club is proudly affiliated with the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs and National Garden Clubs.
Florida’s Arbor Day is the third Friday of January. Although nationally, Arbor Day is always the last Friday in April, several states celebrate during other appropriate planting seasons.
