A greener Gramby: Volunteers plant 40 trees in Morristown park

Modern Meadow employees, standing up a serviceberry tree after it was taken from its plastic pot. Sep. 23, 2022. Photo By Kyle Polillo
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By Kyle Polillo

 

Morristown’s George Gramby Park just got greener.

Forty trees were planted Friday, donated by Modern Meadow, a biotechnology company from Nutley. Seventy-five employees volunteered to plant the trees, along with members of the Morristown Shade Tree Commission and workers with The New Jersey Tree Foundation.

The park plantings were organized by the shade tree commission. The New Jersey Tree Foundation supplied the trees, mulch, tree guards and shovels, and trained the Modern Meadow volunteers to plant trees.

The new trees are intended to provide cleaner air, shade and an aesthetically pleasing environment for the park.

“I feel like a little child at Christmastime,” said Shade Tree Chairperson Kristin Ace. “I feel like we got the biggest, most exciting present on the face of this earth.”

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Ace, a commissioner for nine years, said her volunteers work hard to keep Morristown green, and she was honored that the Tree Foundation selected the commission as a partner.

Volunteers laughed and had fun while planting the trees. Some trees were difficult to remove from their plastic pots and needed to be cut out.

Ace said the grant process between her commission and the Tree Foundation fell through initially because of insufficient funding.

But that changed when Modern Meadow’s chief executive officer, Catherine Roggero-lovisi, reached out to Crystal Wessel of the Tree Foundation.

“Modern Meadow wanted to do a giveback community day and have an employee engagement event,” Wessel said. “Once Modern Meadow reached out to us to see if they could do a tree planting, I was like, ‘Perfect.’ They told me they were going to have a bunch of volunteers.”

Modern Meadow is celebrating 10 years in biotech, Roggero-lovisi said.

“Our mission is to be a catalyst for change for people and planet,” she said. “I think it was important today to give back to the community.”

Modern Meadow employee volunteers celebrating the completion of successful tree planting. Sept. 23, 2022 Photo by Kyle Polillo

Roggero-lovisi said the company wanted to help the environment in a place that would appreciate it.

“So we felt that, you know, working a bit, sweating a bit, having cookies and planting trees was the best way for us to do it,” she said.

Morristown’s Department of Public Works (DPW) dug all the holes. Mulch was layered around the trees and tree guards were installed around the trunks.

“This makes me feel really excited about the future of this park,” said RJ Bell, a shade tree commission member. “We had a number of trees that had to come down in this park because of the emerald ash borer; there hasn’t been much greenery here for that reason.”

Starting next spring, the DPW will take care of the trees and water them for two years. Then the trees’ roots will be established, and they should survive without additional watering.

Modern Meadow employee volunteers trying to remove a new tree from its plastic pot. Sept. 23, 2022 Photo by Kyle Polillo

Lisa Simms, executive director of the Tree Foundation, and her team circled around the park, assisting volunteers.

“The New Jersey Tree Foundation adores working with volunteers and planting trees with volunteers, and doing this in Morristown today was just an amazing event,” Simms said.

All the trees planted on Friday are native to New Jersey and the northeast. They included white pines, American hackberries, serviceberries, black gums, white oaks, red oaks, bald cypresses and red maples.

Ace said it was a valuable learning experience for the volunteers.

“I know they’re going to leave here and go out into their world and have a deeper appreciation of how to be with trees in their environments,” she said.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks again to the Morristown Shade Tree Commission for their tireless efforts enhancing the green spaces of Morristown. Keep planting!

  2. Perfect project for Morristown and the environment. Thank you to the Shade Tree Commission for making this happen.

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