* Ask community newspapers to publish articles from past Arbor Days, highlighting the people who planted the trees the community enjoys today. Take a current photo of the tree planter and the tree to publish with the article.
* Have a contest that recognizes the oldest tree of each species in your community. Give special prizes for trees estimated to be 125 years old.

* Encourage your mayor and your governor to proclaim Arbor Day and hold a special tree planting ceremony for the 125th Anniversary. Create a time capsule with a picture of the planting and a write-up about the participants. Store it in the library or historical society to be opened in 125 years.

* Organize a drive to gather paper or aluminum to be recycled; use the profits to buy trees.

* Find out which trees in your community were planted in past Arbor Day celebrations. Try to locate the planters and take a picture of both for the local newspaper.
 

* Plant a park with 125 trees. Label the trees so visitors can learn to identify trees by their leaves.

* Ask Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to act as guides for a tree hike through an existing park, pointing out interesting facts about the trees within. Include information about when the trees were planted and the estimated age so visitors can get an idea of a tree's life span. Highlight trees that are 125 years old.

* Engage community groups and individuals in a tree planting contest similar to the first Arbor Day in Nebraska in 1872. Give prizes to the group that plants the most trees and recognize everyone who plants 125 or more.

* Get people together to think and talk about trees. Ask retirement homes to invite children to plant a tree on the grounds and give the residents a chance to talk about Arbor Days when they were children. Create a tape for a radio show using these memories, ask the children to narrate it, and share in with the entire community.

* Organize a shelf for the school or community library that highlights all the fictional books about trees. Write questions that are answered within each book and give the reader who is the first to answer all the questions a tree to plant. Or create a bingo card of tree books and have a tree-planting ceremony at the library for everyone who completes the card.

* Plan an Arbor Day Birthday Celebration at community schools. Spend the entire day with featured speakers, games, activities, and lessons that focus on trees and tree planting. Decorate the halls and classrooms with original tree art, listen to songs about trees, investigate tree science, do tree math, and learn about Arbor Days around the world in social studies. Write stories and poems about trees, and create a school newspaper that features the trees in your life. Invite community tree planters to talk about stewardship, and plant a tree in honor of Arbor Day's 125th Birthday.

* Download the historical documents from this web site and learn about Arbor Day celebrations in J. Sterling Morton's hometown. Compare the celebrations to those in your community.

* Organize an Arbor Day run to benefit tree planting . . . Hold a pruning workshop. . . Publish a map of special trees in your community. . . Ask the city or donors to fund that special tree-planting project that your town has been needing. . . Use the 125th Anniversary of Arbor Day as a wonderful excuse to do lots of things that need to be done!

* Celebrate Arbor Day in a personal way by planting a tree yourself. It is an act of optimism and kindness, a labor of love and a commitment to stewardship. Anyone can do it. Start a tree seed in a cup, or a seedling in a pot. If you have no place to set it out later, give it to someone who does, and watch it grow together.
 

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More Good Ideas for a Great Arbor Day Celebration:

* Raise the flag, strike up the band, make Arbor Day fun. Make it memorable. Organize a fun run. Make it a real event. See if a local business will donate prizes. Have a poster contest, or a poetry contest. Get the local PTA to sponsor a children's pageant or play. Organize and train volunteers to help you carry out Arbor Day ceremonies in your schools.

* Get people excited. Show them things they've never seen before. Tell them things about trees they've never heard. Launch a thousand helium balloons with Arbor Day greetings inside offering a free tree to anyone who finds and returns the message.

* Fill the air with music. Have an Arbor Day concert of songs about trees, or with tree names in their titles.

* Get people into action. Ask a civic or service group to promote a paper drive to gather paper to be recycled and save a tree. Use the proceeds to buy a special tree to plant in a park or other special public place. Ask a local radio station to sponsor a tree trivia contest and give away trees to winners. Conduct a tree search. Ask people to find large, unusual or historic trees in your community. Tell people to take a hike--a tree identification hike--and have girl scouts or boy scouts act as guides.

* Dedicate a forest, or a tree, or a flower bed in a park, and make it an occasion to talk about stewardship. Get a local nursery or garden center to hold an open house or field day. Organize an Arbor Day Fair.

* Get people together. Ask retirement homes to invite children to plant a tree on their grounds and give the residents a chance to tell the kids about Arbor Day when they themselves were children. See if neighborhood organizations will hold block parties and get their members to adopt and care for street trees in front of their homes. Pass out buttons. Give away trees.

* Make Arbor Day a real holiday. Make it special, and make it an occasion to look forward to. Make it a day of wonderful memories, and fill it with the promise of newly planted trees.

* Celebrate Arbor Day in a personal way by planting a tree yourself. It is an act of optimism and kindness, a labor of love and a commitment to stewardship.

* Anyone can do it. Start a tree seed in a cup, or a seedling in a pot. If you have no place to set it out later, give it to someone who does, and then watch it grow together. Find a place to plant a seedling or a sapling or the largest tree you can handle alone.

* Each and every tree which is planted stands as a living reminder that we all bear responsibilities of stewardship. We are living links in a chain of humanity stretching from the dimmest past into an unknown future. We can each help make that future more certain by performing a simple act--by planting a tree.
 

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Planning an Arbor Day Ceremony

An Arbor Day ceremony, be it simple and brief or an elaborate all-day observation, can be a delight to children and adults alike. It is especially meaningful to children if they have discussed the history of Arbor Day and have learned how to plant and care for trees before the ceremony is held.

A basic Arbor Day ceremony might include:

1. Greetings by a school principal or civic leader.

2. Reading a brief Arbor Day history.

3. Singing songs and reading poems about trees and tree planting.

4. Planting a tree together. Children might add a handful of soil brought from home to cover the roots. A small bottle holding the planters' handwritten names could also be placed by the roots.

5. Completion of planting, along with a demonstration about how to properly water and care for the new tree.

If resources allow, it is very memorable to distribute tree seedlings which can be adopted and planted at home.
 

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How do YOU celebrate Arbor Day?

Celebrate the 125th anniversary of Arbor Day with us. Share the news of your city or school activities from Arbor Day celebrations this year and in past years. Send photos, proclamations, and any other information you may have about your celebration to:

The National Arbor Day Foundation
100 Arbor Avenue
Nebraska City, NE 68410
 

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Write for your free copy of "Celebrate Arbor Day!"

For lots of ideas about how to observe and celebrate Arbor Day in your community, write for our free "Celebrate Arbor Day!" booklet. Send your name and address and the words "Celebrate Arbor Day! Booklet" to:

The National Arbor Day Foundation
100 Arbor Avenue
Nebraska City, NE 68410
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