Green capped students to plant trees for Arbor Day
School students will help plant 23,000 trees at Waiwhakareke reserve this Friday as part of Hamilton’s Arbor Day.
School students will help plant 23,000 trees at Waiwhakareke reserve this Friday as part of Hamilton’s Arbor Day.
Pupils will form a large portion of the volunteer squad, with 36 schools lined up. Community planting co-ordinator Gerard Kelly says the schools could bring around 1217 volunteers.
“We also encourage the schools by making 25 buses available to the first 25 schools to register for the project,” he says.
One such school, Knighton Normal, is sending a squad of 30 “green caps” to learn about the environment, plant some trees, and hopefully fulfill their wishes of seeing some native wildlife. Knighton’s environmentalists, the green caps, know the importance of what they’re going to do.
Green cap Andre Butler is hoping to see some rabbits and red deer while he’s planting the trees. “We’re going to make a forest and it’s good for all the animals,” he said.
Mrs Gardener Ward, who looks after the green caps, says the kids get a real buzz out of the whole concept
The green caps are made up of 30 children, aged 6-9, selected from all the classes in the middle school. Mrs Gardener Ward says about three-quarters of the middle school wanted to be in the green caps.
“The trees that they’re planting, they can go back to with their kids and mokopuna.”
Support from parents has been far above what she was expecting, with just about every second parent wanting to come along, she says.
The event will begin at 10am on Friday at Waiwhakareke Gate 2.
