Environmental Club Celebrates Tree-Plenish Event

As seniors wrap up the coursework for their high school careers, the two senior presidents of the Environmental Club, Bryana Miranda and Emily Geogiev were celebrated last Thursday, May 18 at an end-of-year festivity. There, they reflected back on the work on Environmental Club accomplished this year and elected new officers.

On top of the school recycling program and other endeavors, the club took on the challenge to give back to the environment with the Tree-Plenish program, a milestone event in its second year.

In an effort to combat energy consumption by replenishing the environment, the Hudson High Environmental Club organized the Tree-Plenish program by selling seedlings to the Hudson Community. Tree saplings were picked up on Saturday, April 1st. 

$5.00 saplings were ordered by March 1st and then picked up the day of the event a month later. Many options were available, including the Eastern Redbud, Sugar Maple, and American Hornbeam. Although they did not meet their goal, the event was still an overall success.

“Our goal was 150 trees but we sold 71,” said Avani Kashalikar, treasurer of the Environmental Club.

“It went pretty well, with all but one picking up their trees,” said Kashalikar.

The Tree-Plenish event went on, despite the weather conditions.

“The event ran smoothly, it was a lot colder than expected in the morning so we were all bundled up,” said senior Emily Georgiev, Co-president of the Environmental Club. She continued, “We had all the equipment we needed and thankfully no disasters happened.”

“We all had to take breaks inside to warm up,” said Kashalikar.

This is the second year in a row that the tree-plenish event was held.

“We wanted to act on the advice/feedback given to us by last year’s participants,” said Georgiev. “We wanted to reach a wider audience.”

With experience from last year, the Environmental Club was able to try a new technique.

“We tried out a new system this year where we created pots out of paper bags and filled them with soil to hold the trees. These pots could be put in the ground as is and allowed for easier transport, and we found them to be a success,” said Kashalikar.

Aside from Tree-Plenish, the Environmental Club has also been working on other projects.

“Currently, the Environmental Club is helping to tend to the turtles being kept as classroom pets in elementary schools,” said Georgiev. She continued, “Furthermore, we are of course still continuing to man the school’s recycling program.”

“While we didn’t get as close to our goal as we would like, I think the amount that we sold was pretty good for the circumstances,” said Kashalikar.