SOIL and the Scouts of Haiti Plant 800 Trees

Last Wednesday, SOIL partnered up with the Scouts of Haiti to distribute and plant 800 trees in Madeline, a community about 15 minutes outside of Cap-Haitien’s center. This project is our first big step toward SOIL’s goal to plant 10,000 trees between January and June of this year thanks to Trees, Water & People and all the individual supporters that made this project possible.

SOIL rolled up to Jaden Fleuri Primary School with our little blue dump truck filled with 800 saplings as the throng of school children greeted us with excitement and curiosity during a break from their lessons.

SOIL and the Scouts quickly formed a chain to transfer the 80 bags of 10 trees each from the truck to a corner in the schoolyard. With everyone pitching in, we had them sorted and ready to distribute in no time. And soon, after being carefully registered and accounted for, little mango trees, breadfruit trees, avocado trees, and orange trees began marching out with their new families to their new homes! Some of these trees were originally planted on Labadee Beach by Jam Cruise volunteers last January, a project also in collaboration with Trees, Water & People.

800 trees!

Each receiving family had prepared a space for their new trees to come take root – some had a plot in the garden, some a little corner between two houses, and some families even had circles cut out from the cement foundations of their patios to let the earth breathe and to create a space for their trees to grow.

SOIL treehuggers - Claire Frohman and Monika Roy

SOIL followed three of these families to their homes to see what would become of these baby trees that we have tended over the past 12 months in our nursery. It was such a joy for us to observe and take part in the planting of these saplings that, like proud parents, we can already imagine some day in the future, providing shade and fresh nutritious fruit. Over the next few months (and in the years to come), SOIL plans to keep track of these trees and see how they progress in their different environments.

Beautiful projects like this one are only possible with the participation of enthusiastic volunteers like those we had from the Scouts of Haiti and from Jam Cruise and with the generous financial support of SOIL friends around the world who put faith behind our vision! We thank everyone who has been involved in the process so far and we look forward to keeping you all posted on the status of these fine saplings!

Stay tuned to find out when and where our next planting project will be!

Planting a courtyard tree.