Woodland Hills Dickson STEAM Academy Plants Trees to Welcome Spring
Written by Raina Rippel - Executive Director
Time flies and life ends abruptly. One week ago, I was helping plant trees at the Dickson STEAM academy, on a glorious spring day much like today, and I was absolutely thrilled to start my second week as the new Executive Director of Communitopia. Getting my hands dirty, seeing youth open up as we planted, and being alive and in the midst of creating the future!
Today is the sobering aftermath of yesterday’s horrific school shooting in Texas, following far too closely on the heels of the shooting in Buffalo, NY, following countless other episodes of unchecked gun violence in our country. So many of us are sickened today. The team I am now privileged to work with has fears I can hardly comprehend, going into schools that have the potential EVERY DAY to be rocked by gun violence.
We have a sickness in this country, and the world. The leadership we so desperately need on climate change, and for the future, we also need to stop this violence. Suicide has been shown to be “contagious” within communities, and particularly for our youth, especially in these days of rampant social media posting. Gun violence is much the same. Our media, and all of us, have to grapple with how much we acknowledge these tragedies, and the terrible choices made by the perpetrators, while not glorifying or excessively promoting these events. I know a trail of tears leads from Buffalo NY to Uvalde TX today, and that trail stretches back to Sandy Hook, and travels through Pittsburgh, and has to stop.
Our tree my team planted was proudly named “Bricksburgh” and it will be a proud oak someday, just getting started in life now, ably nursed along by the wonderful staff at Tree Pittsburgh (shout out to Clara, Odera, and Jamie, who put on the cleanest, happiest, best tree planting I’ve ever seen!). HUGE shout out to the wonderful students at Dickson STEAM Academy, and their wonderful teachers, and the other volunteers who joined me on this joyful day. Much heartfelt thanks to Ken from Churchill Borough, the “Tree Guy” who has made the tree canopy in his neighborhood grow by leaps and bounds.
On today’s sad morning, I am looking back to that day, and the Dawn Redwoods, Oaks, and Magnolias we planted, and I hold out hope for the strength of all these trees, and the health and growth and future for all these students. May we learn from the rain that fell that day, and the hard rain that is falling today on the dry plains of Texas, that seeds planted will grow, and we must plant positivity for our species to survive!
