On May 2nd, 2018 Toronto Leaside Rotary Tree Planting took place at the Moccasin Trail Park. It was a beautiful sunny day. Students from schools in Leaside and Thorncliffe expanded the frontiers and filled in gaps of the planting areas, located on man-made berms immediately east of the Don Valley parkway and south of the rainbow-painted bridge near Lawrence Avenue. Students arrived at the Park between 9:40am and 10:45am and returned to their schools between 1:00pm and 1:45pm. There was a good turnout of 240 mostly grade 5 students from Leaside High, Rolph Road, Bessborough, St. Anselms Separate, Thorncliffe Park Public and Northlea Public. There were many teachers, parents and volunteers at the event providing supervision. The students from Leaside High (grades 9/10) were taught proper tree planting techniques and were very proactive in both planting and mentoring the other students. The staff of Urban Forest Associates led by Alex Karney led the students in a successful day of planting. On the hottest day of the season so far, the students planted 260 trees. They planted:
110 red cedar
20 white spruce
30 bush honeysuckle
50 purple raspberry
50 staghorn sumac
A special thanks to Rotarian Robert Barnett and his friends Miriam and Morgan who took the students on nature walks during the day.
