La Paloma students plant trees at Dinwiddie Preserve

FALLBROOK — Save Our Forest, a branch of the Fallbrook Land Conservancy has been working for three years with students from the FUESD to restore native growth to Fallbrook woodland areas. This year students from La Paloma School completed a project they started last year. A total of 221 students put tiny seedlings of Toyon (California Holly) into pots to be grown until they were big enough to put into our local nature preserves. On Friday the students gathered at the Palomares house to be lead by 11 SOF volunteers to Creekside Conservation easement and the Dinwiddie Preserve to plant their work. With sites previously staked out, the students dug the holes and put their babies into the earth. Volunteer Sheriffs provided two units to keep traffic either stopped or moving at a very slow pace as needed.

Keeping Fallbrook rural and green is the goal of the Save Our Forest group. Planting trees in the downtown corridor to provide energy saving shade while creating a more pedestrian friendly atmosphere, and restoring native growth to properties now owned by the FLC, is part of their work. Once a community with rolling green hills, we see the stark reality of ever-increasing numbers of houses and cars. Trees and plants hold the secret to a healthful environment.

The Fallbrook Land Conservancy and Save Our Forest thank the La Paloma principal Cathy Kerley and her staff as well as the students and parent volunteers from La Paloma Elementary School for their enthusiastic support of this project.