GALT, CA (MPG) - With a tree-planting and a street cleanup, two local groups took the Saturday before Earth Day to help the environment.

Darlene Westphal, volunteer garden coordinator and instructor at Arcohe School, led the planting of four trees April 20, on the school campus and at Herald Community Park.

A dozen individuals, many from Herald Baptist Church, helped to plant the valley oak saplings, saturating and loosening the root balls, and surrounding the young trees with layers of soil and mulch. The two on the Arcohe campus were located near the baseball diamond.

The Rev. Paul Smith of Herald Baptist said a prayer over the trees, asking that they provide shade for children and shelter for animals.

The group confronted various obstacles to getting the trees in the ground. The Sacramento Tree Foundation donated four trees, but the two it had prepositioned in Herald Community Park were apparently stolen the night before the planting. Herald resident Hardy McKimmy donated two replacement saplings.

“It’s so nice to overcome those obstacles with help rather than to rely on yourself,” Westphal said. She explained that her goal in this project and her gardening programs at Arcohe is to build community. Organizations including Herald Community Club, Tractor Supply Co. and Galt Rock have supported her work.

“I’m trying to make sure people don’t feel alone, and in our community we have a large number of folks that are older and are living on fixed incomes, and so I’m trying to provide for a need and make people aware that we need each other. And you know, nature is not just beauty but it’s peaceful and is one way to communicate community,” Westphal said.

She noted that the valley oak is a “keystone species,” meaning it has an especially large effect on the surrounding organisms and environment.

“An oak tree provides a home or food to over 2,300 small animals and insects,” Westphal said, continuing that valley oaks used to be much more numerous in the Central Valley but have been cut down to make way for development.

Westphal said another of her goals is to promote peace through various gardens that students help maintain around campus.

“It’s the simple actions that you do, the simple things that have meaning,” she said.

The Galt Youth Commission and Beautification Committee asked Galt residents across the city to honor Earth Day by joining their monthly street cleanup on April 20. Earth Day was on April 22.

Joined by community members, the commission and committee members picked up trash along Caroline Avenue and Civic Drive, as well as around City Hall and in the Galt Market parking lot.

The most unusual find was a disassembled bicycle in the market parking lot.

In addition, the memorial rose garden at Galt-Marian O. Lawrence Library got some much-needed attention, with a fresh layer of mulch donated by the Lowe’s in Stockton. The garden has plaques memorializing five people, including Amber Clark, a librarian from the Sacramento Public Library’s North Natomas branch who was killed in 2018.

“It looks really, really nice,” Beautification Committee Member Gale Webber said of the garden.

Oak tree saplings raised by Arcohe students are available to members of the public for free. To get one, send a message to the “Arcohe School & Community Garden” Facebook page.

The Beautification Committee and Youth Commission hold monthly street cleanups on the Saturday after the fourth Thursday of the month. Contact the city of Galt for details on each month’s location.