By Anna Etra

Sixteen students planted trees on Oct. 18 at an event organized by the Community Council.

The 16 sophomores, juniors and seniors gathered at the Upper School and took a bus to the Castle Heights neighborhood with math teacher Ashley Satterthwaite-Johnson.

Upon arrival, the students planted with a group of volunteers attending the event, which was hosted by TreePeople.

The school’s group planted at total of 10 trees. Some of the trees adorn the side of a road and some are in front of homes.

The rest of the volunteers planted about 30 trees in total.

Each tree takes about an hour to plant. Supervisors from TreePeople were on hand to help with digging, watering and securing the trees with posts. The group worked for five hours, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Community Council members Julie Barzilay ’09, Max Eliot ’09 and Ava Kofman ’10 organized the event.

They were in charge of creating and collecting all the forms, taking care of the liability and securing transportation.

“After Community Council’s first event, the Abbot-Kinney carnival, we wanted to focus on another aspect of community service – the environment and the natural world,” Barzilay said.

“Some kids are really passionate about cleaning, beautifying or preserving the Earth, and we wanted to give them a chance to spend time doing something meaningful that they would enjoy.”

Barzilay is also co-president of the Environmental Club, and is helping the club coordinate a beach cleanup with the Community Council on Dec. 7.

“It was really fun actually planting the trees,” Max Zipperman ’10 said. “It was nice to give some beauty and shade to a community that does not have that many trees.”

TreePeople is an organization that Community Council was excited to work with, Barzilay said.

“Students were very proud of all the hard work they put in planting the trees and were inspired by the legacy they left – 10 trees that will outlive all of us,” she said.

Because of the success of this event, Community Council is planning to hold more events with TreePeople this year.