GREENFIELD — Kathy Spencer and her classmates had a problem they wanted to solve.
It was 1988, and her fifth-grade class, led by Marciann Richardson, were known as the Weston Elementary Community Problem Solvers. The problem: Greenfield in its efforts to grow and progress had become steadily less like its name. The city needed more trees. The solution: the Problem Solvers gathered seedlings, topsoil and mulch from donors and located residents who would allow trees to be planted in their yards.
Thirty years later, that attempt to solve a community issue by the group of youngsters continues, known now as the nonprofit organization Regreening Greenfield.
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Kathy Spencer Lee, one of the students whose hands planted seedlings in Greenfield neighborhoods with the guidance of her teacher at Weston Elementary, is now a first-grade teacher at the same school.
“It is amazing, really,” she said. “It started so small with a classroom full of students, and it’s still here. It goes to show you never know what will turn into a lasting project.”
Humble origins
As part of the project, which won first place in the Indiana Department of Education’s Community Problem Solving Program contest, the students interviewed then-mayor Keith McClarnon — their teacher’s father — about issues the community faced and brainstormed how they could help solve those problems.
They felt the loss of Greenfield’s trees, felled because of age, harsh weather, disease or in the name of progress, was a problem they could help begin to fix, Marciann McClarnon said.
They sold donuts before school to their fellow students, then used the money they raised to purchase seedlings from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
They spoke to local government boards and business leaders, including the Greenfield City Council, the Parks and Recreation Board and the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce, to raise awareness about the need for more trees in the city. They wrote to local businesses and nurseries to determine seedling prices; designed posters to advertise their project; and spoke with Daily Reporter writers about their efforts, further spreading the word.
The fifth-graders created a hotline for residents to call if they wanted a seedling planted on their property, then advertised their services in the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce newsletter, among other sources.
After the students completed their project, the mayor made the effort a part of his task force. After that, attorney Ron Pritzke helped the group achieve its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, Marciann McClarnon said.
She’s still an active member of the organization, which has planted thousands of trees and given out many more seedlings annually since its inception
She never expected the group project to make such an impact.
“Of course, you always hope things work out that way,” she said. “This program got kids interested in their town. It made them take a look around.”
Present and future
Regreening Greenfield still works to distribute seedlings — giving out about 1,000 a year to residents who plant them in their yards — and to plant and maintain trees along city streets through volunteer labor and by combining efforts with other groups.
Last year, the nonprofit worked with the Greenfield-Central High School Rover Team to place trunk protectors around young trees along North and South State Street and planted persimmon and American hazelnut trees along the tree walk at Beckenholdt Park, said Sally Parsons, the group’s president.
Perhaps best known for its annual Arbor Day celebrations on the last Friday in April, Regreening Greenfield has won national recognition. For the past 17 years, Greenfield has carried the distinction of being a Tree City USA community, a designation offered to about 3,400 communities across the United States by the Arbor Day Foundation.
And it’s not just about casting shade. The Arbor Day Foundation said trees yield three to five times their cost in overall benefits to the community, including reductions of cost for energy consumption, stormwater management and erosion control.
The effort to maintain Greenfield’s trees hasn’t become easier since 1988, Parsons said
Regreening’s latest survey showed that, as of 2014, Greenfield has lost some 43 percent of the street trees that were counted in 2004, Parsons said. These losses are attributed to disease, lawnmower damage, volcano mulching, automobile strikes, and age. Since the 2014 survey, even more trees, both street and yard, have been lost, including the eventual loss of all area ash trees from ravages of the Emerald Ash Borer.
With the support of Mayor Chuck Fewell and the Greenfield City Council, and with essential planting assistance provided by the Greenfield Parks and Recreation Department and Charlotte Creek Nursery, Regreening Greenfield since 2014 has planted some 350 street trees and plans to plant at least 100 more in the spring season, Parsons said. To protect the trees and the financial investment in them, each new tree receives a $1.50 plastic trunk protector — a small price to pay for survival in the tough environment of a street tree.
While the organization works hard to replace older trees felled by age, weather, construction or utilities, it takes years for a newly planted tree to yield the benefits of a decades-old tree, she said.
“Even though we’ve added to the urban canopy, it’s going to take a while for those trees to really give us the same environmental benefit,” she said. “That’s kind of the beauty of Regreening Greenfield. It’s still going after all these years, and the work still continues.”
