Trees sprouting up across campus after donation
47 young trees donated by city recently planted by JROTC, community partners
Newly planted trees take root at Akins. Students and community volunteers worked over a weekend in December to plant the 47 trees donated by the City of Austin.
February 12, 2016
As winter begins to pass, Akins students will see a new legacy take root and grow around them through the spring after JROTC helped plant more than 40 trees in December.
Akins benefited from a program sponsored by the City of Austin’s Parks and Recreation department with support from the TreeFolks non-profit group, which says that tree planting improves the air and water quality, providing shade, increasing native tree diversity, and restoring wildlife habitat.
A fire that burned more than 4,500 acres in Bastrop County last year is a factor that helped lead to the trees that were planted at Akins. After the fire JROTC cadets were able to gain service hours for planting new trees in Bastrop.
“We planted the trees because our cadets must establish goals at the beginning of each year and they must make sure those goals are accomplished,” Colonel Ronald Oliverio said.
The purpose to planting trees in Akins was to enhance the environment around the school and with the irrigation here the trees could be well watered. In addition to JROTC, community volunteers as well as Fulbright Scholars from various countries around the world also helped out.
“Akins was especially cool because along with the cadets, we also had Girl Scouts, retired folks, and a large group of Fulbright Scholars to help,” Tree-Folks community engineer Manager Nell Newton said.
The mission of TreeFolks is to empower Central Texas to build stronger communities through planting and caring for trees.
“The soil was hard packed and full of rocks, and the skies were threatening to pour on us, but everyone seemed to have a good time. By the end of the morning we managed to plant and mulch 47 trees,” Newton said.
Sophomore Jorge Ramirez, one of the cadets who helped plant the trees, found that planting the trees was definitely worth putting in the effort.
“I think that our work definitely paid off,” Ramirez said. “The trees are starting to grow leaves and I didn’t know if they would stay standing, but they are and they’re looking good.”
This will not be the only time JROTC will be planting trees. On Feb. 13 the cadets will help reforest the trees that were destroyed in the recent Bastrop fire.
“If the opportunity arises again we will be there,” Oliverio said.
