Giving a Living Memorial and Helping the Environment

Last spring the Senior School Environment Club received a POET grant (Protecting Our Environment Together) from Hamilton Community Foundation, to start a process of reforestation of unused parts of the campus with native Carolinian trees and other plants. This “Carolinian Arbour” is designed to beautify the campus, protect rare tree species native to the area, provide improved habitat for birds and other wildlife (especially migrants), enhance the experience of walking or running on the campus with shade, colour and variety, provide an educational resource, and reduce the school’s carbon footprint. Our long term goal is to provide corridors of trees along the slopes, between the playing fields, and along corridors where people move through the campus.

Staff donations had raised another $500 on the death of Dr. Moffatt’s father to commemorate his life with a tree, and we combined the two initiatives on Earth Day 2008, planting a cluster of five Carolinian trees and native grasses, with identification plaques and a memorial stone, east of the staff parking lot. The result was pleasing enough that many people suggested we extend the opportunity to our constituencies to donate dedicated living memorials to loved ones who are no longer with us.

The Environment Club has a plan to add several new trees this spring. Our choices will largely be trees of the natural oak forest that would have been found on this site, with other rare native species scattered among them as site characteristics and aesthetics permit. We are pleased to be able to offer, through the Development Office, the opportunity for parents, alumni, students and friends of the college to sponsor a memorial tree in the name of a loved one. Choice of species would be made in consultation with the club, but immediate needs are white, black, chinquapin and Hill’s oak, butternut, black walnut, shell-bark hickory, black cherry, serviceberry, hard maples (black/sugar), blue beech and single specimens of Carolinian species like black gum, Kentucky coffee tree and others. Availability of these species may vary at any given time.

If you would like to memorialize someone special, we can plant a moderate sized tree and erect a stone plaque (local escarpment dolomite with a brass text plate) for $500 or a somewhat smaller specimen with a small brass plaque for $250. A new POET grant can then cover the cost of companion planting with smaller specimens, to produce an attractive cluster. Please contact the Advancement Office if you are interested in participating through a donation (adrienne.davidson@hsc.on.ca or ext. 162), or email Dr. Moffatt (moffatt@hsc.on.ca) or Emmaline Houston (emmaline.houston@hsc.on.ca) if you would like more information on the project.