Over two weekends in July, OCCA hosted tree planting events and a litter clean-up for volunteers from the Tzu Chi Foundation. Both tree planting events occurred at Granard Wetlands; the first of those happened on the warm Sunday afternoon of the 23rd. With equipment for planting provided by OCCA, approximately 40-50 high school student volunteers from Tzu Chi along with OCCA staff and volunteers including Emma, Chris (BSU), Beryl, Chris B and Nick, set about planting approximately 400 trees. Afterwards, the generous volunteers offered us cupcakes they’d made as a thank you, and shared traditional winter melon tea.
The second tree planting event followed a similar structure to the first. On the morning of the 29th, the team of OCCA volunteers and staff included Emma, Camilla, Josh (BSU), Jo, Kirsten, Blaire and Rob. Alongside another group of 40-50 Tzu Chi university student volunteers, they once again met at Granard Wetlands to plant another allocation of 250 trees on a different allotment of land. Concluding the tree planting, Emma accompanied approximately 30 of the Tzu Chi students to Annie Street, Coopers Plains to meet with a Brisbane City Council Litter Officer, Cristal Lau and OCCA volunteer Chris for a litter clean up along the street.
OCCA volunteer Chris had this to say of the afternoon, “The Tzu Chi Foundation was fantastic to work with and I thought it was lovely that they shared their culture with us in the form of tea and cupcakes.” Emma Barry, our partnerships manager says, “The Tzu Chi Foundation are a great organisation to work with. The volunteers are dedicated, enthusiastic, well organised and very friendly. We would like to thank them for all their efforts planting over 600 native plants over two weekends at Granard Wetlands and collecting a huge amount of litter in less than an hour in a litter hotspot within the catchment of Oxley Creek.”
Both days were very successful and enjoyable events for all involved, and we look forward to collaborations with the Tzu Chi Foundation in the future. Our planting events will help to rehabilitate the natural habitat in Granard Wetlands and assist wildlife living in the area. The litter clean-up will be followed up with further anti-litter efforts in partnership with the Brisbane City Council.