School kids parade for Arbor Day

In honor of Arbor Day, over 1,000 school kids will march in a parade and help plant a ceremonial “Serviceberry” tree as part of the Queens Botanical Garden’s (QBG) annual celebration.
The ceremony, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 27, will start with instruction for the children on the planting and care of trees.
The parade, which will be led by musicians from the Brooklyn/Queens Conservatory of Music, will begin at 11 a.m. and marchers will travel throughout the Garden, located at 43-50 Main Street in Flushing.
After the parade, keynote speaker Stubby Warmbold of Citilog - an organization that salvages wood and lumber - and Assemblymember Ivan Lafayette, who helped to organize the event, will talk to the students and other celebrants.
A dozen organizations, including the Alley Pond Environmental Center and the United States Department of Agriculture, Asian Longhorn Beetle Division, will exhibit at the event, which will wrap up at 1 p.m. In addition, the kids will show off homemade banners, about the life cycle of trees and lumber harvesting.
Arbor Day activities and exhibits allow students to examine different aspects of the environment, organizers said about the QBG event. In 1971, the QBG celebrated its first Queens Environment Day, which later became known as Arbor Day.