St. Peters College—26 May 2019

St Peter’s College in Auckland is a secondary school for boys and it’s mission is to “educate the whole person in an environment of Christian love and service.”  The school has a strong commitment to community service.

In July a group of St. Peters science students will be travelling to the US where they will visit New York and Cape Canaveral in Florida and attend a NASA astronaut training program.

In order to help raise funds to cover some of the cost of the trip and to help offset the carbon footprint of the trip, the students decided to get family and friends to sponsor trees that would then be planted at CUE Haven.  We did a similar fund raiser for a St. Peter’s Classics trip to Greece and Italy in 2017 and we were very happy to help out and the CUE Haven Community Trust once again donated the trees which the students planted today.

The group arrived by 9:30 and included St. Peter’s students Andrew, Connor, Hunter, Jacob, Kahu, Matthew, Max, Nathan, Noah, Oliver, Reon, Rory, Thomas and Toby  Also accompanying them were family and friends Angela, Anna, Glenys, Ivan, Jason, John, Karl, Leane, Mark, Patrick, Peter, Pip, Thomas and Assistant Headmaster Guru Kumar and science teacher Uji Galappaththege.

We got acquainted over morning tea and then Mahrukh gave an overview of the CUE Haven project and Thomas gave a description of the planned work and a safety briefing.

The plan for the day was to do infill planting in an area that had previously been planted in 2010.  In addition to mahoe and cabbage trees, we planted long lived forest giants such as totara and taraire.

Because of the size of the group, we drove them up to the planting site in groups.  When everyone was on site, Thomas did a planting demo and a safety reminder and the group broke into teams and went to work.

The weather was perfect for planting and group quickly spread out over the large area to find good spots to plant their trees.

They weren’t afraid to get deep into the bush to find good planting spots.

As the groups finished off an area, they moved down to the next.

Once they finished planting, the groups collected all the trays, pots, spades and bags and brought them back up to the ute.

The group accomplished an amazing amount of planting in just a couple of hours.  We then took a leisurely walk back to the cottage which gave everyone a chance to see more of the property and to learn a little about the CUE Haven restoration project.

We then had a relaxing lunch and spent some time socializing before the group headed back to town.

We want to thank Guru for organizing and coordinating the logistics for the day—and for helping out with the photography!  It was a pleasure working with the St. Peters students and we’re glad CUE Haven could provide them with this fund raising opportunity.

We would also like to acknowledge the people who helped the students with their fundraising efforts. We look forward to having you all visit CUE Haven to see the native community reserve where the trees you sponsored have been planted.

A big thank you to all the hard working students and their families and friends and the teachers for giving up a Sunday and planting the trees.  We very much enjoyed meeting you all and working with you.

You all accomplished an amazing amount of work and have made a significant contribution not only to CUE Haven but to our environment and the wider community.  The trees you planted will create a long living sustainable habitat and provide food and shelter for a variety of plant and bird life over the years. And also provide educational opportunities and enjoyment to generations of visitors.  What a fantastic legacy!!

We hope you have a fun, fantastic and safe trip to the US.  We wish you all the very best with your future endeavours and look forward to having you visit CUE Haven with your families and friends often over the years to explore the community native forest you have helped established.

Thank you!!