Public School & Lindsay Exhibition get shade trees in 2025
St Lukes Public School
Who doesn’t like shade trees?
Based on last year’s 100 Kids That Care donation, we already knew the answer—kids love them.
Over the summer, we were asked if we could tackle a planting at St. Luke’s Elementary School. By the end of October, ten good-sized shade trees were in the ground around the field. The principal’s husband and his crew showed up with a digger, shovels, and the kind of get-it-done energy that makes things happen before anyone overthinks it. No committees. No delays. Just action.
Tree plantings always seem to lose out to other “more urgent” budget lines. That’s exactly why we do what we do. We raise the money, buy the trees and plant them. Simple. Pragmatic. Action.
Lindsay Exhibition
Our second planting was at the Lindsay Exhibition Grounds. Every single year, the #1 piece of visitor feedback was the same: “No shade trees!” If you were there last summer, you saw it firsthand—cars baking in the sun, pavement shimmering, families hunting for relief that simply wasn’t there.
There’s an old saying: “Everyone wants to park under a shade tree, but no one wants to plant one.”
Good news? That mindset is finally cracking.
Thanks to 100 Men of Kawartha Lakes and Kawartha Credit Union, ten solid shade trees went in this October, planted by the exhibition’s grounds crews. Could the grounds use 100 more? Absolutely. We’ll see what’s in store for the future!
Final thoughts about the year
Last year hit Lindsay hard—an ice storm that shredded mature trees, followed by a summer drought that stressed what survived. In a year like that, timing matters. October planting gives trees cooler days, better soil moisture, and a fighting chance to establish before winter locks things down. It’s not just convenient—it’s strategic. And kinder to the trees.
Shade doesn’t grow from ideas. It grows from shovels in the ground.
And around here, that’s how change takes root.