Arbor Day Ceremony Today

The City of Toccoa is celebrating Arbor Day with the community today. The Arbor Day Ceremony is being held at the Stephens County Library at 4 P.M. Thirteen Dogwood trees will be planted along Savannah Street and Sage Street during Thursday’s program. Since 1991 Main Street Toccoa has now planted over 279 trees in the Downtown Toccoa area.
As part of the Arbor Day celebration the library sponsored a Plant a Tree Program and Poster Contest for children. Shantelle Grant of the Stephens County Library says that the program also will include a reading of the Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax”, and involve a special craft.
Arbor Day began in 1872 at the suggestion of J. Sterling Morton as a day set aside for tree planting and conservation of the earth’s resources. Since 2004 Toccoa has been one of 112 certified Tree City USA communities in the state of Georgia. Tree City USA has been thriving in the state of Georgia due to the partnership between the Arbor Day Foundation and the Georgia Forestry Commission. For example, in 2009 Georgia’s Tree City USA communities spent a combined total of over 15 million dollars on their urban forestry budgets benefiting more than two and a half million Georgia residents who live in those communities.
Grant says that the significance of Arbor Day is important to “plant a tree, save a tree”, and that they are important to all of us.
Lavonia and Royston in Franklin County are also Georgia Tree City USA communities.