FAÜNNEP – BEYOND A HUNDRED
On the last day of May, we planted in Tolna. Three words, one sentence.
Yet behind it lies a novel.
This was, in fact, the 100th planting in a series that we started on November 30th of last year.
Between the two events, 98 plantings took place.
Those who followed the plantings of the 10 Million Trees initiative over the past six months likely did not hear much about these 98 (+ two) plantings in the K&H Bank Cooling Groves program. We did not talk about it.
We spoke about the nearly fifty thousand trees that we planted from the start of the autumn planting season until the end of the spring season. This dense series can be tracked on the 10 Million Trees website.
However, we remained silent about this.
But now, having completed the task exactly six months later, we are happy to bring it up.
We planted 555 mature trees and twice as many shrubs from nearly fifty species in 100 settlements across the country’s 19 counties. Always in schools, kindergartens, and nurseries.
The entire program was made possible through the financial cooperation of K&H Bank, while we contributed expertise, organization, and actual physical labor to the success. A huge thank you and gratitude to one of our most dedicated volunteers, Gabriella Kéri, who put in superhuman dedication, engineering attention, and indispensable hands-on work. Without her, there would be no calm and satisfied relaxation at the end of the work. But nothing at all.
And of course, thanks to everyone who participated, with at least 20-30 people per planting, totaling around three thousand individuals. Perhaps even more. Among our own ten million tree volunteers, more than twenty also took part in the work: Rita Görgei-Reiner, Kriszta Konorót, Imola Bereczk, Franciska Hervai, Dénes Nagymihály, Lőrinc Hervai, Balázs Toth-Szabó, and certainly others who were regular participants in these plantings. A big thank you to them as well!
Today we planted in Tolna, – I started at the beginning. Over nearly four years, this was the umpteenth planting where I took a shovel in hand, at the end of which I bid farewell to the trees we planted for their eternal habitat, perhaps never to meet again. Your lives begin here and now, to which I could contribute a little. We, the ten million tree advocates, could contribute. However, today’s planting was different. On one hand, it was the 100th in a long series, on the other hand, the presence of the elementary school students from Tolna redefined, if I may use grand words, gave a metaphysical meaning to the planting. It was palpable that these eight Saint Stephen linden trees, which will strive to provide shade on the school’s soccer field as soon as possible, had a deep connection with the children, who, as if they were the white-clad dancers from Csontváry’s Pilgrimage to the Great Cedar, welcomed and surrounded the arriving little trees with love.
Much is owed to the school’s teachers, as today was transformed into a project day for all classes: some wrote poems about the tree, the choir lined up in beautiful white blouses and shirts for the ceremony, and the backdrop was made up of an exhibition composed of children’s drawings. Even the students sitting in the audience were not passive: they asked questions, worked, and provided feedback. Everything felt as if we were in peacetime, as if there was normality and order in the world, as if the attention to the eight newly arriving trees was truly important in life. And all of this was not only genuine but stemmed from the most sincere, undisturbed natural existence of the children. They celebrated the trees,
On September 19, we shared the call for applications for the K&H Bank Refreshing Groves program. 487 institutions applied. On November 31, we planted the first tree in Budakalász, and in accordance with our promise and commitment at that time, today we planted the last one.
I love stories like these. I love the beauty of the trees, the precision of our actions, and the cooperation not only between the bank and the foundation but also among a hundred schools, kindergartens, nurseries, children, and their parents. I love that the 10 Million Trees initiative, after concluding its most successful planting season to date, can still pull off such an achievement from its inner pocket. I am proud of our national community and my colleagues. In moments like this, during such joy, I deeply experience what our motto is: Long live life!
