Mount Vernon Arbor Day Celebration Branches Out This Saturday

MOUNT VERNON, NY — The Mount Vernon "Green Renaissance" continues this year — the city's Arbor Day community tree planting will take place on April 30.

On Saturday, at 11 a.m., the City of Mount Vernon will celebrate the 150th year of the National Arbor Day holiday and honor the 50th anniversary of the Arbor Day Foundation with a community tree planting at South 4th St. and West 8th St., near the Rebecca Turner Elementary School.

The rows of future flowering cherry trees are expected to both enhance the neighborhood and "serve as an enduring symbol of growth, beauty and hope to the younger generation."

At its first community tree planting in 2021, Mount Vernon declared the beginning of its "Green Renaissance." A revised tree ordinance was announced and the city charted a path to the return to its former status as a Tree City USA.

Since then, Mount Vernon has kept up a commitment to the restoration and expansion of native greenspace. In order to build a solid community framework, the city established a citizen tree board, with a mission of providing input to the city's tree management program.

Mount Vernon's achievements were recently celebrated at a NYS/DEC Urban Forestry state-wide recognition event where the city was presented as an example of an evolving story of advocacy for greening the urban landscape and its efforts to overcome existing environmental inequities.

A who's who of local green thumbs were dedicated to the greening of Mount Vernon, including Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard, Mount Vernon City Council, Mount Vernon Comptroller, Mount Vernon Tree Advisory Board, Mount Vernon Department of Public Works, Mount Vernon City Clerk, Mount Vernon Office of Sustainability, Mount Vernon Department of Planning and Community Development, Mount Vernon Department of Recreation, Mount Vernon Youth Bureau, Mount Vernon City School District, Mount Vernon Boys and Girls Club, Sustainable Westchester, Federated Conservationists of Westchester County, NYS/DEC Region 3 Division of Lands & Forests and the Arbor Day Foundation