Cherry Tree Planting Ceremony Comes To Walt Whitman High School

BETHESDA, MD — The National Cherry Blossom Festival held a cherry tree planting event at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda Wednesday afternoon, where about 50 students participated in the dedication ceremony.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival’s Neighborhood Tree Planting Program is an effort to celebrate the gift of cherry trees from Japan in the Washington, D.C., area. The program aims to create new National Cherry Blossom Festival traditions beyond the Tidal Basin area, which receives thousands of visitors each spring.

At Walt Whitman High School on Wednesday, students decorated a school hall with blossoms and wrote messages of peace and international understanding on a banner hanging behind the stage. The event’s speakers spoke of how sakura is a tradition of gathering under the trees and encouraged the students to do that in the spring when the trees bloom.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival partnered with All Nippon Airways, an annual supporter of the annual cherry blossom festival, on the event, where Okame and Yoshino cherry trees were planted.

Walt Whitman High School was one of four high schools in the D.C. area chosen for the cherry tree ceremonies. Events were held at South County High School in Lorton on Oct. 21 and at Langley High School in McLean on Nov. 3. Another event is scheduled at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County on Nov. 21

The National Cherry Blossom Festival also held a ceremony at Georgetown University on Nov. 9.

The festival is held each year in March and April in D.C. and across the region. The 2022 National Cherry Blossom Festival marked the 110th anniversary of the gift of 3,000 cherry trees given to D.C. by Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki in 1912.