Elena Messina from the New Jersey Tree Foundation helps students at the Oakwood Avenue School plant fruit trees.
ORANGE — The 13 trees being planted around the Oakwood Avenue School serve many purposes.
Some of them will provide shade for the playground, others will help decorate the entrance to the school and six will hopefully produce fruit. The entire experience, though, is a science lesson and a chance for students to dig in the dirt and spend some time in nature.
The trees were provided by the New Jersey Tree Foundation’s Renaissance Trees Program, which plants trees in areas of low tree canopy cover at the request of the residents who live there. To get trees, a minimum of 10 residents must agree to help plant and maintain the trees for the first two years. NJ Tree Foundation provides the trees, tools and training for each tree planting event at no cost. The organization has planted more than 4,600 trees since 2006.
“The health and environmental benefits of trees are well-documented and have even greater impact in urban settings where there is limited tree canopy,” said NJ Tree Foundation Executive Director Pam Zipse, “Our mission is to answer the call of residents who want to improve their street- and their community- by planting trees to provide shade, cleaner air, stormwater management and beautification.”
The planting at Oakwood Avenue School in Orange was one of six being done in Essex County this fall. Students were planting six fruit trees – pear and fig – in the school garden, five shade trees around the school’s playground and two flowering trees at the entrance to the school.
“The playground gets really hot,” said Joya Clark, who teaches science and oversees the school’s Garden Club.
RTP Director Elena Messina was at the school on Wednesday, Oct. 8 to help teach the children how to plant the trees.
“Planting trees is a long term investment in your community and volunteering to plant trees is a great way to learn a skill you can replicate for life,” she said.
Oakwood Avenue School has about 220 students in pre-kindergarten through seventh grade.
“Oakwood is this tiny school with a couple of hundred kids in this amazing community, urban/suburban, with people who have a lot of heart,” said Clark who has been teaching at the school since 2013.
Clark took over the Garden Club when school nurse Judith Powell, who had been in charge, retired. The club meets every Thursday, doing planting in the spring, harvesting and then composting and clean up work in the fall.
Trees and plants and gardening equipment can be expensive but the school has had some excellent partners, including the Renaissance Trees Program, the Church of the Mixed Multitude and a garden center, Clark said.
“A lot of the after school clubs got cut because of federal funding cutbacks,” Clark said. “Had it not been for the community effort, what you see here would not exist.”
School Social Worker Richard Greene said the tree planting dovetailed nicely into the school’s Week of Respect, a state-wide program meant to decrease bullying. Each day last week had a specific theme with Wednesday’s being “Respect the Environment.” Other days included “Respect and Love Yourself” and “Don’t Sweat Bullying.”
“This day is a good day for kids to get involved with nature,” Greene said. “It helps reduce stress, anxiety, they’re working as a team and they get to see the fruit of their labor. They can come back years from now and say ‘look at that, I planted that.’”
The trees were placed in raised garden beds because the ground has been found to contain high levels of lead.
Among the things growing in the garden currently are apples, collard greens, tomatoes, eggplant, parsley and basil.
“We harvest and as the plants die, we clean up the beds, it’s all a lesson,” Clark said. “Some of our students who have the most emotional struggles, this opens up their minds like nothing else I have in my lab.”
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