Planting trees last week gave the Robert Fulton School students a sense of empowerment, and a belief that maybe their generation could curtail global warming by conserving energy.
Josephine Solorzano, a fourth grade teacher at Fulton School, in currently a graduate student at St. Peter’s College. One of her classes asked its students to organize community-based activities, so Solorzano spoke with the Fulton School PTA, and with their help was able to track down a generous benefactor who donated 100 plants for the Earth Day project.
Several other agencies and people also chipped in by donating trees.
While Earth Day (April 21) was rained out, students on April 24 planted outside of the school and talked about why it was important.
Steven Kristoph, the owner of Kristoph Nursery in Milltown, N.J. and an adjunct professor at Rutgers New Brunswick, donated 100 perennials and even came to the school to lay out a plan for where they should go.
Solorzano said that Kristoph’s donation will bloom each year.
Andrea Arteta, a seventh grade Student Council member, said that with global warming and pollution, “the earth is going to be ruined earlier” and conservation was essential.
“We have to make the kids aware that the environment is important,” said Principal Patrick Capotorto. “Not because of aesthetics and how beautiful we want the school to look, but they have to understand trees [and] how much oxygen they provide the environment.”
More donations
On top the generous donation of plants, North Bergen will receive more than 300 trees.
The Cool Cities Initiative of the Department of Community Forestry Program donated 200 trees to North Bergen, which will all be planted in the downtown area because of its lack of trees. Mayor Nicholas Sacco donated another 125 trees to the township, while the Meadowlands Commission donated 10 large trees which will be planted along Tonnelle Avenue. Some of the trees have already been planted.
Green since 1991
Sacco praised the donation at Fulton School and said that it was a “wonderful thing.”
Not only did Kristoph make the students aware of this generosity, but gave them a chance to “take part in Earth Day” in a more significant way, said Sacco. He said that some students live in apartments and do not have a backyard to plant in. This day gave them an opportunity to get involved.
Sacco said that he has donated around 2,400 trees in North Bergen since 1991. Elaine Nicoliello, a long time Town Hall employee, was in charge of getting grants and beautifying the township as a whole. They focused, and still do, on getting “urban” trees, like the flowering white pear tree, that do not have deep roots so pipes and sidewalks are not destroyed.
“We’ve done a great deal to improve the environment and we did it originally without even thinking in the terms of the environment,” said Sacco. “We were just making the town more attractive. Now we see the impact that we’ve been having, especially in the light of all the studies on the necessities to go green.”
Sacco said that Nicoliello is the main reason North Bergen receives so many trees each year. She is the “moving force” behind the grant applications.
Nicoliello said that she is already planning where next year’s trees will go.
“She’s done a marvelous job and she doesn’t like to be in front taking credit, but she gets the credit for the hard work. She’s very forceful. She gets the job done.”
In the students’ hands
PTA President Lee Perez was excited that the project came to fruition and that the school’s ecology club will maintain the plants.
“For Earth Day, I turned my lights out for an hour.” – Ayah Taha
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“[The plants] will take CO2 out of the Earth,” said ecology club member Darcy Marmolejos, who explained carbon dioxide was one of the causes of global warming.
When asked if the environment was an important issue, members of the ecology club presented ways of how they already conserve energy.
“For Earth Day, I turned my lights out for an hour,” said Ayah Taha.
Tricia Tirella may be reached at TriciaT@hudsonreporter.com.