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Above, from left to right: Grace Saati, campus life director with York is U, Rashed Chowdhury, Green Team coordinator with York is U, Robert Macdonald and Edward Spence
Mother Nature didn’t mess with York’s Green Team this year. The April 1 Arbour Day at the University’s Keele campus was the most successful one to date and, unlike last year, the weather resisted the temptation to play an April fool’s joke on the planters.
The York is U Green Team spirit blossomed, with over 35 community members taking part. Staff from the University’s Mail Services and Grounds & Vehicles sections helped create the grand celebration at the University.
Those who attended the Arbour Day event at York last week were greeted with two short presentations, first, by Professor Edward Spence, senior policy advisor in the Office of the President and former dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES); and second, by Professor Rob Macdonald, Office of the Dean, FES.
Spence welcomed everyone on behalf of President Lorna R. Marsden. He said he was particularly enthusiastic about the event and the good attendance, and pointed out that the planting site was in the immediate area of his current residence, the Hoover Homestead. The homestead is a historic property built in 1848, located west of the Passy Gardens residences, off The Pond Road on the Keele campus.
Macdonald provided an overview on the important contributions that trees make to the York environment and detailed some of the previous tree planting initiatives by others such as Professor Mike Boyer, after whom the woodlot on the east side of East Office Building was named.
Once the speeches were over, the 35 attendees proceeded to the site known as Saywell forest, on the Keele campus by Hoover Creek, where 200 white spruce seedlings were planted.
Everyone who turned out received a York is U Green Team T-shirt and there was vegetarian food and drink for all the dirty, yet happy, tree planters.
Right: One of several signs displayed to make people aware of the Arbour Day event
The Green Team plans to hold the next Arbour Day in early October, and invites the community to come.
The above article was submitted to YFile by John Wilson, manager of York’s Postal Services and the Inter University Transit System, and the York is U team.
Read last year’s YFile stories about Arbour Day in the April 2 and April 10 issues.