Winning Grosse Pointe Park Arbor Week posters find students branching out creatively

GROSSE POINTE PARK — Students were able to merge art and science lessons by competing in Grosse Pointe Park’s annual Arbor Week poster contest.

The winners were honored during a June 9 Park City Council meeting, but as Beautification Commission member Pat Deck, chair of the contest, pointed out, students are learning about nature as they create their designs.

“The Arbor Week poster contest is a wonderful way to educate our schoolchildren and our community on the value and benefits of trees,” Deck said.

The contest is open to fourth grade students at schools in the Park, as well as split classes. Deck said all schools had some level of participation, and the commission received 107 entries from a pool of 162 students at three schools.

“Every year, we are so impressed and amazed by what the kids come up with,” Deck said.

This year marks the Park’s 42nd year as a Tree City USA — a designation from the Arbor Day Foundation — and also the 42nd anniversary of the contest, Deck said.

All of the winning entries this year came from Defer Elementary School. The winner was Una O’Keefe.

“This joyful poster, done with brightly colored markers, features a large tree with a rainbow in the background,” Deck said. “There are birds, butterflies and flowers around the tree, plus a young sapling beneath. They are symbolically growing from a globe of the earth. Her slogan reads, ‘To plant a tree is to plant life.’”

O’Keefe said she was originally going to draw “a ton of trees growing around the globe,” but ended up with a single tree growing out of half a globe to show that “tree giving life to other trees.”

There were also two runners-up. One of them, Kolter Vellen, drew a tree with a substantial crown and root system, a squirrel in the bark, worms in the soil and a pair of children reading under the shade of the tree. Deck said Vellen included a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state and to live as people, we must have trees.”

“At first, I was kind of thinking of just doing the branch of the tree, but then I decided to do the whole tree so I could add animals,” Vellen said.

Mayor Michele Hodges said the poster had “a lot of heart.”

The other runner-up was William Fogel, who had to come to the council meeting late because he was in a Little League playoff game.

“It’s unique because it’s the first time we had a poster with a nighttime scene,” Deck said.

The poster also features an owl and the slogan, “Plant a tree to make a forest grow.”

Fogel said it was his mother who suggested he create a night scene.

“I decided to make this poster as it is to remind people that if you plant a tree, it spreads kindness and it might inspire someone (else) to plant a tree,” Fogel said.

The entries are judged blindly by members of the Beautification Commission.

“We don’t get to see the names (of the artists) when we judge (the posters),” said City Councilman Brent Dreaver, the council liaison to the Beautification Commission. “We’re very serious about election integrity.”

Commission members say they enjoy this event and seeing all the entries.

“I actually think every poster is a winner,” Deck said.

This year’s contest was bittersweet for the community and the commission. It was the first to take place without the participation of longtime Park Urban Forester Brian Colter, who died suddenly in March.

“I want to say how much our Beautification Commission misses having Brian Colter …  as an integral part of this project,” Deck said. “Brian was always most supportive and helpful in this event.”

Deck thanked the Park businesses who let the commission put posters on display in their establishments.