Green Apple - Love Our Trees Day

A group of volunteers, made up of students, parents/caretakers, teachers, and members of the community will gather on September 29^th, 2012 (from 10am – 1pm) to clean up and beautify our school’s green spaces.  We want to clean up garbage surrounding our school, plant flowers, paint planters, and create wooden signs for each of our street trees.  We hope, by doing this, to protect our trees more effectively and to raise awareness about the importance of urban trees and plants.  Our goal for this event is to launch a yearlong awareness and fundraising program, which will culminate in the building of a school garden on our sunroof.

1. Map out and count our street trees and green space.
2. Identify the species of trees surrounding our school with the help of Million Trees NYC’s website and other resources.
3. Prepare the data on our trees for signs to be made.
4. Rally Volunteers through outreach: Email, Flyers, Letters to Parents, Teachers, and Students.
5. Post event on Green sites (Green Thumb, etc.), alert media about event.
6. Petition local vendors to donate materials to the event.
7. Connect with city green groups (like Green Thumb, Million Trees NYC) for support and a possible demo on the importance of Street Trees.
8. Purchase materials for event.
9. Build tree signs.
10. Clean tree pits, plant plants, put down mulch, install tree signs.
11. Paint flower planters; add signs to plants and trees on school grounds.
12. Recycling of recyclable garbage as we clean up PS 172’s green space.
13. After event day follow up: Report to PTA Newsletter, Letter of thanks to donors, and volunteers.  Something special for the children who participated, certificates of tree stewardship for example.

To inform our community about the importance of caring for our city’s green spaces, especially our street trees.  This project raises environmental awareness about topics that affect our neighborhood including: littering, recycling, and pollution.  By taking time to identify, label, and care for the trees surrounding PS 172 we hope to be a positive example of ecological stewardship in our community.