Salem Celebrates Earth Week and Arbor Day 2024

Salem will celebrate Earth Week with activities, including tree planting, at two local schools: Witchcraft Heights Elementary School and the Early Childhood Center at Bentley Academy Charter School.

These programs will teach students about the benefits of trees and how to care for them. Students at both schools will be given tree seedlings, donated by the Salem Department of Public Services, to take home and plant in the ground or in pots. They will also have a classroom coloring activity that teaches them how to care for their trees. 

On Wednesday, April 24, Mayor Dominick Pangallo will meet with students at the Early Childhood Center along with Dr. Stephen Zrike, Superintendent of Schools and Conor Morgan, Salem’s City Arborist.

Friday, April 26, which is National Arbor Day, will be celebrated by planting 10 native shade trees at Witchcraft Heights Elementary School. Fifth graders will assist the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) Forester David Bresnahan, Arborist Conor Morgan and Dr. Zrike in planting two of the trees.

“We are proud of our commitment to greening Salem with the planting of trees,” said Dominick Pangallo, Mayor of Salem. “It is so important to teach students the many ways trees help our environment. Trees improve our air quality by capturing pollutants, slowing down climate change by storing carbon emissions, providing shade which keeps the city cooler, and much more,” he continued.

National Arbor Day, which is part of the Tree City USA program, celebrates the importance of trees in all settings, including urban cities such as Salem, and highlights the many ways in which trees improve our quality of life and the health of our environment. Salem is proud to have been recognized as a Tree City USA since 2001. National Arbor Day is celebrated in more than 3,400 communities across the country.

Salem residents who want to learn about the benefits of trees, how to plant and care for trees the right way, request street trees from the city for their neighborhood, or even request free trees for their yard from the Greening the Gateway Cities Program (DCR), can find all of this information, and more, on the Tree Commission webpage: www.salemma.gov/tree-commission.

In an effort to keep Arbor Day plantings thriving, the Salem Tree Commission created a poster to explain the proper way to mulch trees and to discourage over-mulching the trees during springtime clean up.