Oak Ridges Tree Planting

Posted by Peter Szoke on May 09, 2017

For the 9th year in a row, the Rotary Club of Richmond Hill is sponsoring a tree planting at the Oak Ridges Moraine Corridor Park. Come join hundreds of local school children this Thursday, May 11!

9^th annual Oak Ridges Tree Planting

400 plus York Region Students reforest Oak Ridges Moraine Corridor Park, the 9^th Year

See your York Region students in action – doing and learning reforestation, Thursday May 11 from 9 am to 3 pm.

2017 will be the 9^th year for this project originated by Richmond Hill Rotary Club.

The results of the previous 8 years can be seen along Old Colony Road, west of Bayview in the north east corner of the big new Oak Ridges Park. There 20 foot fast growing poplar trees tower above slower growing oaks, maples and pines, cedars, elm, butternut and sumachs and shrubs beside the older growth forests of Catfish Pond. With the approval of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and help from the Town of Richmond Hill’s Urban Forestry Department, more than 13,000 native trees and shrubs have been planted by students in 12 acres since May 2009 at a cost of more than $160,000. In addition the Richmond Hill Rotary, major funding has come from the Toronto Dominion Bank’s Friends of the Environment. Other funding has come from the Richmond Hill Garden and Horticulture Society and TRCA. It is a small but ongoing program of bringing back forests and savannahs to the more than 1200 acres and growing, of what is now called the Corridor Conservation Reserve.

High school students arrive after 9 am for tree planting training. Grades 5 and 6 students from Region public schools and three private schools arrive after 11 am, bringing their lunches and watching a Raptor flying show by the Canadian Raptor Conservancy. Work in teams of high school leaders and elementary students begins at 12.30 pm, with 1,200 to 1,500 trees planted, mulched, plastic guard protected and given an initial watering as the kids take busses back to their schools and home. Or in the case of Bond Lake Elementary School walk back across previously planted areas.

“It is wonderful to see the enthusiasm and competence of the young students and their leaders” says Shelagh Harris, honorary Rotarian and former Richmond Hill teacher and librarian, who has come to the planting each year, whose husband Bill initiated the program in 2009.

“My kids really benefit from the hands on planting,” says Penny Senior, grade 6 teacher at the Richmond Hill Montessori school, nearby on Bayview Avenue.

“Our students look forward to the chance to go tree planting each year,” says Marcello DAgostino, principal of As Sadiq Islamic School which in 2017 is sending 56 students to take part in the planting.

Since 2009, more than 3,000 York Region Grades 5/6 students and 1,000 high school students have planted in this project, an educational and forest and open space restoration program.

TCA and Project managers have worked to allow filming and photographing of the project. Area media is invited and encouraged to visit the program.

Contacts:

Rotary Club of Richmond Hill Public Relations, Peter Szoke pszoke@truepulse.com; (905) 508-4998

2017 Schools Planting Coordinator, Michael White michael.white@sympatico.ca ; Planting Day Telephone, cell/text 416 895 0967