Eunos Tree Planting Day 2008

30 November 2008
Eunos Zone 5

Right after Eunos Appreciation Nite, Eunos Grassroots Leaders gathered in the Sunday morning to plant trees. I only slept for 2 hours before embracing the flora. I remember learning about the significance of Tree Planting Day but am not so certain about it, so I did some Googling and found this:

"The idea of setting aside a day to plant trees originated in the United States. In the 1800s, concern grew about rapid deforestation of the United States. It was Julius Sterling Morton, editor of the Nebraska City News, who persuaded his state to make 10 April 1872 a tree-planting holiday called "Arbor Day". The practice gradually spread to other states and today, most states in the United States observe Arbor Day on the last Friday in April.

In his book From Third World to First, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew wrote about the drive to make Singapore a tropical garden city. He described the campaign as one of the ways to achieve First World standards in Singapore. For instance, greenery raised morale and made people proud. It also showed effort put into maintenance and impressed foreign VIPs. Tree Planting Day was one of the events used to support the tropical garden city initiative. SM Lee also mentioned that Tree Planting Day was set at the beginning of the rainy season in November to minimise watering."*

Mayor Zainul arrived early and after greeting everyone, the Eunos CCC Tree was planted. Mayor was joined by children in the watering of plants. He then unveiled the plaque.

Zone by zone, trees were planted. There were fruit trees such as starfruit trees. We couldn't really figure out the Zone 3 tree:

Thanks to Alex for helping me take the photos from my phone.

After planting all the trees, we adjourned to refreshments. When the event ended, I rushed home to get my much needed 2-hour sleep before waking up to attend my Toastmasters meeting.

Went to NUS Central Library to borrow a book. The reference section closed while I walked towards it and I was lucky that the librarian allowed me in. Counting down to my last paper... Hurray!

* Quoted from http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_565_2004-12-29.html