Marine Park

New York City Grows Greener By 20,000 Trees In Largest Tree Planting Effort Of The Season

On Saturday, April 30, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe joined Council Member Lew Fidler, NYC Service Chief Diahann Billings-Burford, Human Resources Administration Commissioner Robert Doar, Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications Commissioner Carole Post and more than 900 volunteers at Marine Park in Brooklyn to plant 10,000 trees and 2,000 shrubs at the MillionTreesNYC Spring Planting Day. Other parks hosting planting events on Saturday were: Cunningham Park and Kissena Park in Queens; Wolfe’s Pond Park and Conference House Park in Staten Island; and Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx. Over the course of the day, more than 20,000 trees were planted citywide.

“This year, Marine Park hosted the largest single-site tree planting event in MillionTreesNYC history, with more than 900 volunteers digging in to plant 10,000 trees,” said Commissioner Benepe. “Thanks to the efforts of volunteers in all five boroughs, New York City is now home to 20,000 more trees and hundreds of other new plantings, making it a greener and healthier place to live. Parks is grateful for everyone involved in this event, who have helped us on our way to meeting the ambitious goal of planting one million new trees.”

Volunteers were recruited to plant trees through the MillionTreesNYC website and with the help of NYC Service. Participating corporate volunteer groups included Green Mountain Energy, Random House Publishing, and Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream. In addition, more than ten city agencies provided volunteers.

MillionTreesNYC Spring Planting Day was supported by in-kind donations from Rob Cano Events, which provided food for all volunteers, and Equinox Fitness Clubs, which provided instructors who led a stretching program before the planting event.

MillionTreesNYC, a cornerstone of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC vision to establish a healthier, more sustainable New York City, is a public-private partnership between the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and Bette Midler’s New York Restoration Project, through which one million trees will be planted and cared for throughout the five boroughs by 2017. As part of MillionTreesNYC Parks is reforesting 2,000 acres of Parkland into new, ecologically healthy, multi-story forests. New forests help expand canopy cover in New York City, increasing the myriad environmental benefits already provided by our urban forest. Since MillionTreesNYC was launched in October 2007, 448,276 trees were planted prior to Saturday’s plantings. For more information, visit www.milliontreesnyc.org.