York students hand out 1,000 Virginia pine seedlings for Arbor Day

Ten-year-old Gavin Turner and his classmates at York’s Hunter Street Elementary School hope other students become better stewards of the environment.

Gavin and a dozen other third- and fourth-grade students in Hunter Street’s gifted and talented program are doing their part. They gave out 500 Virginia pine seedings to students and staff at the school Friday in celebration of Arbor Day, observed in South Carolina on the first Friday in December.

Another 500 trees were given to students and staff at York’s Harold C. Johnson Elementary School.

Gavin hopes students and adults “will take them home and dig a big hole and plant the tree and water it and take care of it,” he said. “This tells kids that trees are important.”

Leesa Parker, a teacher in the MERIT program for gifted and talented students at both schools, coordinated the service learning project. She said students came up with the idea in their study of endangered species threatened by human activity, including deforestation.

Students had high hopes for the project.

“I hope it teaches the kids to plant trees and appreciate the earth and start recycling a lot more,” said Sarah Anderson, 9.

Jackson Rampey, 9, said he hopes “it will educate not just kids, but all people, to plant more trees so we can keep our world alive.”

Parker said her students learned in their study of the environment that “one person in one place has a direct effect on people, animals and plants around the world.”

The idea for the Arbor Day project grew out of that study, she said. Parker ordered 1,000 seedlings from the state forestry department for the project.

The trees came with their roots unwrapped, she said, so preparing them for distribution became a team project. The FFA group at York Comprehensive High School helped wrap the 500 trees for Harold C. Johnson, she said.

At Hunter Street, students created an assembly line to wrap the trees, and members of the school’s Parent Teacher Organization helped out, too, she said.

In recent weeks, she said, teachers at both schools educate students about the need for more trees before they were distributed. Each student also received information about how to properly plant each seedling and take care of it, she said.

Arbor Day marks the beginning of tree-planting season. Climate determines when this is in any given area. South Carolina’s planting season begins in December and ends in mid-March. National Arbor Day is the last Friday in April.

This story was originally published December 4, 2015 at 3:05 PM with the headline "York students hand out 1,000 Virginia pine seedlings for Arbor Day."