As part of a Theology assignment, the two students, Michelle Costa and Andrea Pantrey, defined air pollution as the issue they wished to support on a local level. The students raised monies during a charity week at the high school and then donated the proceeds to Trees Ontario to help the organization get more trees into the ground.

“These two young women have demonstrated the difference that each and every one of us can make in our commitments to enhancing the world that we live in and the air that we breathe,” said Michael Scott, President and CEO, Trees Ontario.

“Their commitment to address the environmental issue of air pollution by supporting our tree planting initiatives with our local planting agencies sets a high standard that encourages other young adults to take action,” said Scott.

Twenty years ago in the province of Ontario we were planting 20-30 million trees each year. Following some major government cutbacks in the early 1990s, tree planting rates dropped drastically. As a rate, the entire tree planting infrastructure across southern Ontario, from seed collection to tree planting itself almost disappeared.

We face a serious challenge rebuilding this infrastructure. Currently, Trees Ontario only plants 2-3 million trees annually.

Today, with climate change the importance of protecting our watersheds, urbanization, and other environmental concerns, it is necessary that we address this challenge and restore tree planting across southern Ontario.

Working with its tree planting partners, Trees Ontario is the largest not-for-profit tree planting agency in North America. The goal is to increase tree planting rates to 10 million trees per year by 2015.

However, this goal will only be achieved if Trees Ontario has the support from its community members and individuals such as these two students.

The effort made by these two students is an excellent example of how we can all contribute to planting tomorrow’s forests.

Trees Ontario formally recognized the great work that these individuals did by presenting each of them with an official, signed and mounted Trees Ontario certificate to commemorate their commitment to the environment and our organization.

Pictured above during the certificate presentation are: Trees Ontario Manager of Communications Elissa Schmidt, Michael Power/St Joseph students Michelle Costa and Andrea Pantrey, Theology teacher Jennifer Gee, and Principle Rory McGuckin.