Lancer Spotlight 3/2/22: Environmental Club hosts first tree planting event

Check out the flyer for the Tree-Plenish event. (Marissa DePalma)

Check out the flyer for the Tree-Plenish event. (Marissa DePalma)

by Brayden Gregory, Editor-in-Chief

The environmental club is hosting the first tree planting event. The club has partnered with the organization, Tree Plenish.

Tree Plenish works to “build sustainable communities by leveraging the power of the youth.”


Our mission is to create more sustainable schools by replenishing the environment with these lost resources. Through student-led events, Tree-Plenish is able to plant trees in the community based on approximations of school paper usage. We also believe there is power in community. Our platform gives student leaders the opportunity to harness this power and enact meaningful environmental change.


Club president Marissa DePalma, VP Catherine Bowers and Advisor Angel Smith have  has worked to organize the event.

The goal for the event is 300 trees to be ordered and planted by April 9th 2022. The goal is around the equivalence to three million sheets of paper being replaced. Families who order trees can plant them in their yards or have  volunteers plant their trees.

The trees can be ordered until March 9, $5.00 each.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED?

On the website choose one of three options.

Order a sapling— Order a sapling to be planted in your yard by volunteers on April 9, 2022.

Volunteer–Volunteer to plant saplings around your community on April 9, 2022.

Support–Share this event around your community or donate to Tree-Plenish to help future events.

If you chose to order a sapling you are given the option between three types of saplings.

Choose between the Northern Red Oak, Red Maple, and the Eastern RedBud to be planted in the community. (Brayden Gregory)

The Northern Red Oak, a Midwest native and is one of the faster growing oaks for the home landscape. The leaves are handsome throughout the year, emerging pinkish-red, turning lustrous dark green in summer, and changing to russet-red to bright red in autumn.

The Red Maple, a widely adaptable large tree common to the woods of eastern North America. A red tinge can be found in its flowers, twigs, and seeds, but it is most notable for the scarlet of its leaves in fall.

Eastern RedBud, a Chicago native plant, evolved in the understory and along wood edges of forests with many neighborhoods are brightened by the purplish-pink flowers lining the dark branches of redbuds before their leaves open.