Malcom X Shabazz High School
Newark, NJ
Located in the city of Newark, New Jersey, this is Malcolm X Shabazz’s first Tree-Plenish event. Barbara Samuels Chin, the Environmental Activist Team Facilitator at the school, along with another faculty member and a few students of the Environmental Activist Team, are planting Eastern Redbud, Flowering Dogwood, and Common Apple saplings in their community. Barbara says that this Tree-Plenish event “empowers our Newark Public School, an urban industrial community, with an opportunity to unite and be uplifting to one another.”
With the help of the Environmental Equity Fund, Malcolm X Shabazz’s event received $350, enough money to make 70 saplings free for the residents of Newark and the surrounding areas. Barbara is excited to help improve green spaces in her community not only because they provide us with the oxygen we need to breathe, but because they also “provide psychological rest, peace, and healing for our spiritual well being.”
When asked about what Environmental Justice means to her, Barbara states that it is “the quality of being fair and impartial across all lines,” such as race. She believes in leaving the “community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it,” and that environmentalism has enabled the students at Malcolm X Shabazz High School the opportunity to focus their attention and concern on a problem that affects us all.
If you are interested in supporting Malcolm X Shabazz’s Tree-Plenish event, please check out their event webpage here.