Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties
Farm boy Leo Geerdes takes the shovel to lend a helping hand in the tree planting festivities.
Josh Toft and Sherman Nielsen pose with students after planting the new tree.
Utilizing their new Oneota grant-funded litter-getters, students picked up litter around the school grounds during a post Earth Day lesson.
The Royal Lions Club last week gifted Clay Central/Everly Elementary a new crimson spire oak tree for the students and school. Children gathered around Royal mayor and Lions Club representative, Josh Toft, and Royal's Trees Forever expert, Sherman Nielsen, to get their hands dirty and assist in the tree planting.
Nielsen and Toft let the children know about what trees need, what they need to do to help the tree survive after a proper planting, and how planting trees is crucial for the community and the world.
Toft circled the lesson back to CC/E's Leader in Me curriculum with the first two of the "Seven Habits."
Habit 1 is "Be Proactive." Toft let the children know that first they made the phone calls to be sure that they could safely dig and plant the tree where they wished.
Habit 2 is "Begin with the End in Mind." Toft stated that they made sure to think about the end goal of how tall and large the tree would get, considering the tree's surroundings by making sure that the tree would not grow into anything else, and that this particular tree would be a good fit for the environment and place that they wished to plant it.
Following the planting of the oak, the students were led around the grounds with their new grant-funded litter-getters to pick up litter and keep the premises clean.
