NEBRASKA CITY – The coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of most headline events of Nebraska City’s 149th Arbor Day Celebration, but the theme chosen long before illness reached the shores of the United States was right on point.

 

Tammy Partsch of Nebraska City Tourism and Commerce said social distancing and bans on large public gatherings do not degrade from this year’s theme.

Partsch: “The theme is ‘remember your roots’and the main idea for Arbor Day is to plant trees and the rest of it that we normally do is just dressing on that, so we need to remember that that’s the main idea.”

NCTC held the community tree planting on Facebook Live, before the rain, which Nebraska City locals recognize as a must for the Arbor Day weekend.

Partsch spoke about this year's commemorative tree.

Partsch: “This is a Kansas City Champion “raspberry twinkle” redbud and it’s super cool because it was created just for us here in Nebraska City by Doug Grimm at Grimm’s Gardens.

The parent tree is from here in Nebraska City and he grafted it with another  redbud, so it’s specifically for us.”

 

She said no parade and no distribution of  tree seedlings at the children’s program highlight how much different the pandemic Arbor Day is.

Partsch: “We’ve been trying for months to try and figure out the best way to do this, the safest way to do this. There were just a few things that we could get done in a safe way. The childrens’ program had to be virtual. This had to be a virtual thing with just our families and the run on Saturday will just be a virtual run as well.”

 

In the pandemic year of 1918, the governor’s Arbor Day proclamation asked for a renewal of the tree-planting spirit.

NCTC is asking folks to post their family tree-planting photos online.

https://www.facebook.com/GoNebraskaCity/videos/224981658929723/