Our community has a beautiful beach; however, there is little to no shade, so it’s difficult to escape the sun’s heat on a sunny day. I also knew from a survey conducted in our community that residents were interested in more opportunities to socialize, and they were also interested in participating in projects that would benefit our neighbourhood. After a community meeting where people talked about the beach needing shade, I talked to a neighbour in support of the project and got his commitment to assist me if successful, and then I applied for a Neighbourhood Small Grant. Fortunately, I was a lucky recipient, and the Community Tree Planting & Coffee Social was a go.
Having identified the supplies I needed when applying for the grant, I set about procuring the goods. Because the supplies were expensive, and I was pretty confident people would show up for the event, I got some donations too, to help spread the funding further and have more trees to plant.
On a Saturday morning in May, almost two dozen residents came together with shovels, rakes, work gloves, and their to-go mugs, and the Community Tree Planting & Coffee Social was on. Once all the supplies were carried to the project site, the tree planting sites were identified, and people wasted no time starting to dig. A young volunteer put her creative skills to use and decorated the buckets purchased to water the trees with a message so people would understand their intended use. Since more than enough people showed up to do the work, other jobs that would improve the site were identified (garbage collection, scraping moss from the stairs), and mentioned to those who wanted a job.
Large carafes of coffee, juice, and an assortment of muffins were spread out on a picnic table where we were working, and everyone was encouraged to take a break whenever they needed and enjoy the refreshments. Neighbours got to know each other and visited, and people shared their tree-planting advice and stories. By midday, we had planted, protected, and watered seven trees at the beach, and everyone went home tired and satisfied.
The connections we made with each other that morning gave many of us a larger group of neighbours to chat with when we ran into each other later in the summer at the mailboxes or walking on the street. A lovely and unexpected surprise was that the act of watering the trees when we were at the beach throughout the summer resulted in several people, both locals and visitors, thanking us for planting the trees and caring for them.
