Participants in an Arbor Day celebration at Wellcome Middle School planted six Nuttall’s Oak trees that they hope will serve as a long-lasting reminder of how a small seed can grow into a great force for environmental health.
Friday’s tree-planting marked Greenville’s 35th celebration of Arbor Day. Students participated in an essay contest put on by members of ReLeaf, a nonprofit group that promotes and develops tree-planting projects for the city. Members were in attendance alongside city Mayor Pro Tem Monica Daniels and others to celebrate with Wellcome students and staff.
Essays were on the importance of trees, which leaders explained to students provide oxygen, fuel and resources. Beyond that, Matt Stephens, director of the Pitt County Cooperative Extension, told students trees fill him with a sense of wonder.
“All trees ... start with a seed,” Stephens told students. “All those seeds contain is the genetic potential of what that tree can become. You can hold that in your hand and over the course of your lifetime that seed, if planted in average soil with average sunlight and average water from rainfall will turn into something that dwarfs you in size.”
Stephens went deeper with specific tree-related phenomena, like how the Bald Cypress is one of the few coniferous trees that loses its needles in the winter. He told students that curiosity about why trees do what they do is a cornerstone of arboreal science.
The essay contest received 26 entries and had nine winners in sixth-graders Madison Brown, Nicholas Duncan, Alexa Correa and Kayden Wooten, seventh-graders Leonel Martin-Martin, David Jones and Brianna Chavez, and eighth-graders Michael Delgadillo and Chrystal Villeda-Gonzalez.
Chavez said the essay contest gave her perspective on how important trees are to sustaining the Earth.
“I just wanted to say how they affect Earth and how they’re important, how we should take care of them,” Chavez said. “Some people don’t value trees as much and I just wanted to make that clear.”
“I feel like I will be able to look back at it and say wow! I did that!” Chavez said of the trees planted Friday. “I want people to know that planting trees isn’t a difficult thing and they really do make a big impact on Earth. They can really just do it (plant trees) at home.”
One of the lessons Wellcome’s staff wanted to get across to students is that their efforts really can make a tangible impact.
“To me, it’s like the perfect analogy,” said Kevin Neal, Wellcome Middle School principal. “We’re planting seeds and we’re planting the future and I want to look back in 20-25 years and see what these students have begun. It’s awesome to think they could be riding down Highway 11 and see these trees 20 years from now and know, hey, we planted these trees and we learned this and we were able to do it wherever they’re at in life.
“In essence, it’s building a legacy whether it’s for them or by them in them planting the trees.”
The students received a demonstration of how to plant a tree from city staff led by Kevin Heifferon, Greenville assistant public works director and city arborist. With those fundamentals in mind they dug holes, cut roots and packed soil on the Nuttall’s Oak trees which can grow up to 60 feet tall at maturity.
Sixth-grade teachers Fernando Arevalo Rodriguez and McKenna Feist were proud of their students’ work on the project, and Rodriguez hopes for continued partnerships with ReLeaf, who celebrate Arbor Day at a different Pitt County school each year.
Feist, who also is a mentor for the school’s National Junior Honors Society, said students earlier this year worked to install flower beds at the school’s entrance as a way to beautify the campus.
“One of the flowers has started to bloom, they were very excited to see that,” Feist said. “The fact that this is also happening this year, it’s very exciting we kind of have a theme.”
Kenneth Villada, a seventh-grader, helped with that project and to plant the Nuttall’s Oaks. He said he prefers the sight of trees to looking at highway outside the school.
“It was to make our school look better and also help out the community at the same time,” Villada said. “We did good. Better plant more trees to save the environment.”
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