May 4, 2006

CITY CELEBRATES ARBOR DAY

RAHWAY– Representing Mayor James J. Kennedy, Third Ward Councilman Jerry Scaturo joined over 100 Roosevelt School third graders and Principal Rocco Collucci on May 3 to celebrate Arbor Day in Rahway with the planting of a flowering redbud tree on school grounds and reading a proclamation about the holiday.

The tree was provided through a generous donation from Public Service Electric and Gas, which gave $500 to the city for planting of utility-friendly trees.  Students read the poem “Trees” by New Jersey poet Joyce Kilmer and were given evergreen tubelings to take home.

“Rahway has been named ‘Tree City U.S.A.’ for several years due to our efforts toward managing a successful urban forestry program here in Rahway,” said Kennedy.  “Thanks to the support of PSE&G and the county’s ‘Greening Union County’ program, we have planted over 200 street trees in Rahway since 2004 and plan to plant another 170 trees this fall.”

Arbor Day was first established in Nebraska in 1872 by J. Sterling Norton and has spread to all fifty states and dozens of countries around the globe.

The National Arbor Day Foundation estimates that each street tree adds $5,000 to the value of a nearby home, in addition to reducing topsoil erosion, cleaning the air and reducing home energy costs.