St. Bernard's Primary School, Newtownabbey
Date: 29 March 2007
No. of trees planted: 60
No. of people involved: 79
Our team headed to Newtownabbey for our last tree planting of the 2006/2007 season! St. Bernard’s School has large grounds with some grassland and some trees at the very back. Some of these trees were planted about ten or fifteen years ago and now form a mini–woodland area. In order to enlarge this area, the school applied for some more trees to the Northern Ireland Tree Campaign.
The weather did not give us the best welcome as the day was wet and grey, and it seemed unlikely that any of the children would be able to plant their trees. We were very happy to have three groups of brave helpers with us and, despite the cold, all of them were very enthusiastic and eager to get their hands on the spades. Some of them even wanted to stay to plant more trees at the end of the session!
At the end of the day, everybody went back inside the school, having done a great job planting 60 rowan, hazel and birch trees that, in some years, will improve the biodiversity of not only the school grounds, but also the surrounding area.