Forest Park’s recreation board will plant a beech tree and hold other family-friendly festivities to commemorate Arbor Day April 26.
In the afternoon, children in the Park District of Forest Park’s day camp will join the celebration and participate in an interactive craft.
Although the village has celebrated Arbor Day for a few years, 2023 was the first time the event was organized by the village’s recreation board. This year will be the organization’s second in charge.
The village of Forest Park made an official Arbor Day proclamation at a meeting in January 2020 and, to celebrate, planted a tree at the Park District of Forest Park that April. The following year, the village planted a China Snow Peking Lilac tree by the public works department.
Arbor Day is the 152-year-old tradition of planting trees to promote and sustain a healthy environment. Newspaper editor and secretary of the Nebraska Territory J. Sterling Morton first pitched the tree planting holiday in January 1872, and Nebraska celebrated the first Arbor Day that April.
The main function of the recreation board was to oversee Forest Park’s pocket parks. When the village’s park district took control of four pocket parks in 2021, the board shifted to focusing on the maintenance and improvement of local green spaces.
Last year, the board planted a cherry dogwood tree at the Forest Park Public Library for the first Arbor Day celebration they organized. There, the board also planned a community art project with a tree built out of painted plywood by Geoff Binns-Calvey, the husband of Amy Binns-Calvey, chair of Forest Park’s recreation board. Last year’s Arbor Day attendees colored on paper leaves and wrote down why trees are important and what they like about trees.
The board took down the tree, along with its leaves, and put it in storage, but are bringing it back for this year’s Arbor Day festivities so that locals can add new leaves. Until Arbor Day, the interactive tree will be at Roos Recreation Center, 7329 Harrison St., so visitors can decorate and attach paper leaves.
“You can color it or write a poem or write a little story about what a tree means to you,” Amy Binns-Calvey said.
Also at this year’s celebration, the board will offer up a few tree saplings for locals to adopt. Those interested can sign up and winners will be chosen randomly.
The day after Arbor Day, there will be the fourth annual spring cleanup, and the third hosted by the recreation board. The event starts at 9 a.m. at Roos Recreation Center before attendees split into groups to pick up trash in one of four zones, from south of Roosevelt Road, between Van Buren St. and Harlem Ave. The village will provide gloves, bags and trash pickers.
“It’s usually a great turnout, and it’s been increasing every year,” Binns-Calvey said. “It makes everyone more conscious of what’s on the ground when you have to actually look down and pick stuff up. I think it raises awareness of how much trash is around, and I think it modifies people’s behavior.”
“We were hoping that people who can’t make it to the spring cleanup might just go out and look at their front yard,” said Binns-Calvey of her wishes leading up to the event. “That lets everybody who’s out there on that day focus on the high-traffic areas.”
The Arbor Day tree planting will be held at Reiger Park, 1526 Circle Ave.