45°
Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling, DEEP's Chris Donnelly, Dan Landau of the Norwalk Tree Alliance, and Troy Bennett of the DoubleTree Hotel all joined Marvin School Principal Sue O'Shea, and spoke briefly to the children. They all helped to plant a donated Kousa Dogwood tree as part of the celebration.
The school also held an Arbor Day poster contest, with winners named in each grade.
Just over 500 students attended Friday's ceremony.
"Each year an elementary school is chosen to host this event, and this year it was Marvin," O'Shea told Daily Voice. "It's a very exciting event because we just had our Walkathon, and we're also getting a Kousa Dogwood planted, and that dogwood will be a representation of all the students and staff who are here today."
Rilling also talked to Daily Voice about the importance of the day. "Trees are so important to our environment," he said. "They give us oxygen, they're beautiful to look at. And it's good to teach young people about taking care of Mother Earth, because if we take care of Mother Earth, Mother Earth is going to take care of us.
"And it's exciting because a lot of these young people will get to watch this tree grow. When they leave here in five or six years, that tree will be three times the size it is now. They'll take care of it, nurture it and take responsibility. It's really just a great thing."
Winners of the poster contest are: kindergartener Luke East, first-grader Arianna Rivera, second-grader Ian Mills, third-grader Amber Baheria-Lopez, fourth-grader Kali Erotopolous, and fifth-grader Lea Schwartz.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Norwalk and receive free news updates.
