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Murphy Elementary seeking community help to plant donated trees

A year of interior rehab work has erased most traces of the flood that severely damaged Murphy Elementary School in Round Lake Park last July. Now, school officials are looking to make additional improvements outside the school.

The building's exterior will get a boost next week when volunteers plant 35 new trees donated by the Morton Arboretum in Lisle.

"We've seen huge improvements on the inside of the school," said Jenni Etherington, a longtime school librarian. "Now I want to do this for the outside of the school to make it nicer and more inviting."

Etherington, who applied for the trees, will be among the volunteers at the school at 2 p.m. Saturday Oct. 20, for the planting.

"We're hoping a lot of parents show up and bring their kids," Etherington said. "We need parents to dig the holes and the kids to fill them back in."

Etherington said they got the trees through an arboretum program that grants trees to underprivileged schools. She said one goal of the program is to provide uncommon trees.

Among the 35 trees will be a pagoda dogwood, a small deciduous tree, and a chinquapin, a tall tree with a thin trunk and unusual leaves. Etherington said they will plant flowering trees like the crabapple or the Japanese tree lilac outside of classrooms.

"There are studies that say students perform better in class if they have something pretty to look at outside," Etherington said.

She said she believes community volunteers will come out to help in droves.

"It's kind of like the Field of Dreams, if you ask it, the people will come," Etherington said.

"They are so generous, as generous as they can be with their time and money, it's an amazing community."

If it rains on Oct. 20, the tree planting will be pushed back to Oct. 27.

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