The Pueblo Parks and Recreation Department will be celebrating Arbor Day with the students, parents and faculty of Heritage Elementary School on Friday, April 19 in conjunction with their Green Day event. As part of the school’s morning activities, Parks and Recreation staff will present to selected classroom students the history of Arbor Day, tree identification, tree biology and an interactive activity of planting garden seeds. After lunch, all of the students and faculty will gather outside the school for the tree planting ceremony. The ceremony will include: a proclamation read by Ed Brown, City Council District 3 Representative; planting of the tree by Heritage Student Council members, songs by the 3rd grade students and the announcement of the Arbor Day coloring contest winners. The winners of the contest will receive a tree of their own to plant.

The Pueblo Parks and Recreation Department and Pueblo City Schools have made this a tradition for the last 33 years. The Tree City USA program began in 1976 by the National Arbor Day Foundation in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters, provides direction, technical assistance, public attention, and national recognition for urban and community forestry programs in thousands of towns and cities across the United States. The City of Pueblo has been a proud Tree City USA community since 1980.

This tree planting is part of a bigger tree planting project supported by the Pueblo Parks and Recreation Department who partnered with the First United Methodist Church and Keep Pueblo Beautiful to purchased 150 trees. The trees are being planted at various churches, schools and parks by the City Park’s staff.