Wednesday, 27 August 2025

 Luba GRIGOROVITCH (Kororoit) (09:55): I had the pleasure of attending the sustainability festival and tree planting day as part of National Tree Day in Aintree. After seven years this local event has become an absolute highlight on the community calendar, with this year being the biggest – more than 5000 native plants were planted by hundreds of passionate volunteers. Since 2019 over 2000 ‍volunteers have come together, planting nearly 20,000 native plants. This means that next year someone will be planting the 20,000th seedling into the ground, a remarkable milestone for our growing community. Alongside the tree planting, the community enjoyed a vibrant sustainability festival complete with hands-on arts-and-crafts activities for kids, a stunning native animal photography exhibition and educational displays that brought important environmental messages to life. There was literally something for everyone and it was a productive, joyful and inspiring day. I want to give a huge shout-out to Jono and the organising team from We Love Aintree. From chatting to students about the artwork on display from aspiring artists at Aintree Primary School to viewing the photography from Pete Cornell of local native wildlife, enjoying a chai latte from the We Love Aintree coffee cart, having a sausage from the Caroline Springs RSL and getting my hands dirty planting a tree, it made the perfect Sunday start to my weekend. Thank you very much to We Love Aintree. I look forward to participating again next year on the National Tree Day as part of the festival.