Students help plant trees for a greener Charles County

For a morning, a group of students traded their textbooks for shovels at Thomas Stone High School to help bring a greener future to their community.

The Resilience Authority of Charles County received $79,822 to plant 451 trees at Thomas Stone and nearby Waldorf Senior Recreation Center. Another group of trees from the initiative were planted on Oct. 17, with representatives from the resilience authority, the Chesapeake Bay Trust and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in attendance.

The planting was part of a broader effort in which $7.5 million in state funding was provided to 28 community organizations to plant 17,694 trees in urban, historically underserved areas across Maryland, according to a release from the Chesapeake Bay Trust.

This effort was created by the Maryland General Assembly’s Tree Solutions Now Act of 2021.

Rafael Aguilar, a student at Thomas Stone, said the project will help bring in more shade and help with the loss of trees in the region.

“Summers are getting a lot hotter here in Maryland,” Aguilar said. “It took until late October to feel like autumn.”

Brooke Johnson, another student at the school in Waldorf, said the plantings will definitely make their campus more visually appealing.

Both Johnson and Aguilar agreed that the trees will help bring awareness to environmental causes and the issues that the loss of trees poses to communities.

This is the third year of the effort to green communities and enhance quality of life, human health and community livability. Funding over nine years will be distributed by the Chesapeake Bay Trust to communities, neighborhoods, civic groups, schools and others who commit to planting trees in underserved regions as defined in the Tree Solutions Now Act.

Studies show that trees planted in urban communities improve the physical and mental health of people within their proximity and that increasing urban canopy can reduce asthma and respiratory-related emergencies during heat wave-related events in under-treed areas, the Chesapeake Bay Trust said.

Mary Owens of the resilience authority said that a big part of their mission is providing education on environmental issues and engaging the public. She said that the plantings will help the community learn the value of trees in helping with climate change, shading hot areas and providing habitat for wildlife.

“It creates a more resilient landscape,” Owens said.

By the afternoon, 15 new trees had been planted at Thomas Stone. Various species were planted, including oaks, birches and dogwoods.