8th-Grade Students Pitch In to Plant 50 Donated Trees

Sharon Sea Hamilton pointed to a splendid, sprawling tree that towered some five stories high.

“That coast live oak across the street is over 100 years old,” said Hamilton, a volunteer with the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District. Then she turned to a scrawny sapling in a plastic pot that was barely a foot tall. “And that’s what this one is going to look like.”

A few of the 46 eighth-graders who made up her audience scoffed. But they grabbed several of the 50 frail-looking saplings that had been laid out in a grassy field, took up shovels and started planting. These arborists-for-a-morning were students at Medea Creek Middle School in Oak Park, a community campaigning to live up to its name.

Hamilton said Tuesday’s tree-planting ended the first year of a five-year campaign to plant some 11,000 oaks in Oak Park. This year, volunteers planted 1,000 trees, and in the coming year 2,500 more trees are planned. The saplings will replace trees that disappeared during development of what is Ventura County’s fastest-growing community.

Hamilton said the saplings, representing two varieties of oak trees, were donated by a local nurseryman who grew them from acorns he had collected in Oak Park.

Science teacher Ruth Means said the tree-planting fits into her class’s exploration of ecology and endangered species. Means said her message was, “Don’t just be a blase kid going through the world. You can take charge of a little piece of it.”

Dana Dwight, who planted two of the saplings, considered the importance of her actions. “If we keep on planting the oaks . . . they, like, give off oxygen and they make our air better,” she said.