Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn founder Christina Delfico invites you to the third annual City Of Forest Day celebration activities at Roosevelt Island’s Lighthouse Park on Saturday October 26. According to Ms Delfico:

Aiming to raise awareness of the natural beauty of Lighthouse Park
surrounding Coler Hospital and the importance of the urban forest,
and the vital role residents play in caring for the lungs of our
city, while having fun doing so, three organizations iDig2Learn,
Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance (MSTDA) and NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler (Coler Hospital) are collaborating to host Forest
for Us a City of Forest Day event on Roosevelt Island.

This third annual event will celebrate the trees at the northern
tip of Roosevelt Island. The afternoon includes a series of
activities, supporting awareness of trees vital role in our local
environment they stabilize the land capturing rain during storm
events, which reduces flooding, they provide a calming respite for
our mental health, they inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen and
provide food and shelter for birds and butterflies.

Image From 2023 City Of Forest Day At Lighthouse Park

One highlight, returning thanks to MSTDA partners, is a performance
from famed dancer Jody Sperling featuring dancers from the Time Lapse Dance ensemble, whose work aims to investigate the relationship of the
moving body to the ecologies we inhabit through performance, media,
education and activism. From 3:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. the company will perform excerpts from
Arbor, an ecologically-themed piece that expresses human kinship
with trees.

Another high point is an underground listening and drawing
experience created for us by interdisciplinary artist Nikki Lindt who explores the subterranean world both sonically and visually to
tell stories about the earths ecosystems. She will guide us to
listen through headphones to what her microphones pick up and
encourage us to draw what we hear revealing surprisingly dramatic
sonic arrays that normally remain hidden from our senses.

Other activities will spotlight members from the community. Meet
Andi of NiAvas Body Bar to sample forest-infused body butters
(while supplies last). Mingle with residents of Coler
Hospitalfor a healthy snack while reveling in peak fall bloom of the sugar
maples and tupelo trees. Enjoy savory appetizers from Jon of Poppas
Pantry. Enjoy assembling a take home succulent in a beautifully
handcrafted mini pot from local Winifreds Collection. Reconnect
with Coach Scots baseball players, the Girl Scouts, Roosevelt
Island Garden Club and Haki Compost Collective members who will
guide us to create mulch rings for existing trees planted in 2022.
Attendees will also plant a handful of new trees and be invited to
add professional botanical tree labels into the ground next to the
trees, thanks to iDig2Learn receiving a Green Fund Grant. Cap off
the event with members of the Roosevelt Island Plogging Club who
will invite us to try Plogging while learning more about their
club.

Dont miss this annual day, especially while Lighthouse Park
trees

are in peak fall color.

iDig2Learn is thrilled to celebrate City of Forest Day and team up
again with Coler Hospital and Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance
to host this day on Roosevelt Island. Island residents and visitors
alike treasure the islands trees. No matter how you arrive by
ferry, subway, tram, bike, bus or foot you cannot miss the abundance
of greenspace on the island, which has been thoughtfully managed by
the RIOC Grounds Team and supporting partners Trees New York and GRIN.
Since 2022, with the help of these outstanding local partners and the
work of RI Garden Club, Haki Compost Collective and Big Reuse, we have
added 100 new baby trees, growing the urban tree canopy by focusing on
native regional species that are known to support New York Citys
habitat.

I am deeply thankful to our partners who co-create alongside
iDig2Learn, including Girl Scouts, Roosevelt Island Garden Club and
Coach Scot’s baseball players and others to make the island
beautiful. I invite everyone our existing supporters and those new
to our work to join us for this joyful City of Forest Day to
explore, celebrate and get to know our trees. By seeing the living
trees as a who not a what we can better protect them. And we hope
the tree labels, which were assembled by residents, will enable
visitors to Lighthouse Park to learn more about the trees in the
park and around Coler Hospital for years to come. Each of the
afternoons free activities has been designed to inspire us to do
more to help our trees thrive.

Roosevelt Islands City of Forest Day details include:

  • WHAT: City of Forest Day

  • WHEN: Saturday, October 26 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.:

    • 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. learn about tree stewardship and participate in a community

      mulching activity to blanket existing trees, plant a handful more and
      add tree labels

    • 2:30 p.m. Meet Coler Hospital neighbors for healthy snacks and enjoy savory bites

      by Jon of Poppas Pantry

    • 2:30 p.m. join Andi of NiAvas Body Bar to sample natural Body Butters

    • 2:30 p.m. plant a take home succulent in
      a handmade mini pot by       Winifreds

      Collection

    • 3:00 p.m. enjoy a 15-minute performance by Jody Sperlings Time Lapse Dance

      ensemble of excerpts from Arbor

  • 3:30 p.m. connect with the artist Nikki Lindt for underground listening and drawing as she connects
    microphones to trees so we can hear and also draw what
    we experience

  • 3:30 p.m. try plogging with the local
    teen-led     Plogging Club to join in on this invigorating and healthy way to keep
    our community clean

WHERE: Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Park, 910 Main St, New York, NY
10044 (the northernmost tip of the island). Please note that in case of rain, the dance performance and
art activity will take place indoors at the Good Shepherd
Church Community Center on Roosevelt Island, 543 Main
Street, New York, New York, 10044 (the dance performance
will be upstairs and the art activity downstairs). For up to
the minute updates on these events, please follow iDig2Learn on Instagram.

This celebration on Roosevelt Island is just one of over 80
taking place throughout New York City on October 26th to
highlight the vital need to better protect, maintain, and
expand the New York City urban forest to benefit all New
Yorkers. iDig2Learn is a part of Forest for All NYC
(FFANYC), a diverse coalition of over 157 organizations
across business, nonprofit, conservation, and environmental
justice sectors that is working to expand the tree canopy of
the urban forest in New York City to 30% by 2035. FFANYC in
partnership with the Parks and Open Space Partners NYC
Coalition and NYC Parks is presenting this citywide.