Graham wraps Arbor Day season, honors 45 years as Tree City USA

Graham closed out its Arbor Day season with a reminder that the city’s tree program is about more than ceremony. Alongside an April 24 planting at Bill Cooke Park, Graham highlighted its 45th year as a Tree City USA community and a citywide push that will add more than 200 trees.

The season ran through March and April, even though North Carolina’s official Arbor Day fell on March 20 this year. Graham used the stretch to mix public events with outreach, including an art contest for Alamance County residents in preschool through adult age groups, a downtown kindness-rock hunt and social media posts encouraging residents to share tree-planting photos with #ArborDayInGraham. Entries for the contest were accepted March 1 through March 31, and winners were selected April 6.

The centerpiece came at 10 a.m. on April 24 at Bill Cooke Park, where Mayor Chelsea Dickey delivered welcome remarks and the Tree City USA and Arbor Day proclamation. The ceremony opened with an invocation by Reverend Rodney K. Foxx and included remarks from the N.C. Forest Service, sponsor recognition and a raffle for participants. Graham planted a northern red oak in honor and memory of Sallye Lovelace Morrow.

City officials have tied the Arbor Day season to the work of the City of Graham Appearance Commission and Tree Board, which advises City Council on the planting, growth and protection of trees and native plants. The board also points residents toward tree resources and outside guidance for tree care, maintenance and identification, giving the program a practical side that reaches beyond the annual observance.

That long-term approach is also visible in a grant from Urban Offsets to plant over 200 trees city-wide. Graham says the project is part of Elon University’s sustainability initiative to become carbon neutral by 2037, making the Arbor Day effort one part of a larger canopy-building strategy that will affect streets, public spaces and neighborhoods across the city.