Greening Taupō Day 2023: Kids lead the way to paint the town green

Heidi Pritchard (back left) from Kids Greening Taupo smiles for the camera with kindergarten "Green Bees".

Greening Taupō Day returned for 2023 and was well-attended in spite of the rain.

The annual planting extravaganza focused on Crown Park for the second year running, with 3000 new native trees added to the 4500 from 2022′s Arbour Day event.

More than 1000 young ones and students signed up to take part through their ECEs, primary and secondary schools.

They were joined by many other locals for the festivities.

Image 1 of 7: Kids Greening Taupo's student leaders wore green to celebrate the occasion.

Alongside bringing native trees back to the park, there was a range of free activities and entertainment on offer.

Save the Kiwi’s stall encouraged the little ones to bring out their inner kiwi bird by hunting for pipecleaner “worms”, using chopsticks in place of beaks.

Author and illustrator Donovan Bixley was also in attendance, live painting a kārearea/New Zealand falcon and donating copies of his new books, Squawk and Rustle, to Kids Greening Taupō and participating schools.

Dozens of businesses and organisations also got on board to help with the event.

These contributions included a $5000 donation from Huka Lodge, tonnes of worm-produced compost from MyNoke and materials from ITM Taupō to help the public make their own pest traps.

Even the food served up on the day was a massive community effort.

Local predator control company Epro donated 500 venison sausages from hunted deer, with Trev Terry Marine providing a further 500 sausages as well as the gear and staff to cook them.

The Department of Conservation rounded off the sausage donations and Countdown Taupō served up the bread, sauces and buns.

Those buns were served with alongside soup made by The Bistro, with vegetables from produce box service Misfit Garden, whose staff were also there handing out fruit to children.

The hard work began behind the scenes three days before the event, with teams from Taupō District Council, the Department of Conservation, Greening Taupō's Wicked Weeders and students from Kids Greening Taupō all pitching in to set up the planting site.

The trees add to the total of more than 180,000 native plants that Greening Taupō have added to the local landscape.