Sri Sathya Sai Baba Centre of Cooksville participated in an annual Tree Planting event in partnership with the City of Mississauga. This took place on Saturday, September 23rd at 2:00pm at Aquinas Park in Mississauga. The day was also the hottest weekend of this year’s summer season. Despite the heat warning issued by the city, enthusiastic volunteers showed their commitment to Swami, in the spirit of service and love of the environment by reporting on time at the site along with members of their families. This selfless service took on ethereal dimensions for two reasons. First, the heat felt like the heat in an open desert as there were very few young trees to take shelter. Second, all members of the Centre who reported did not once give up but continued to plant saplings through the dry and hard surface of the earth.

Perhaps the ultimate act of selfless service was when a young child helped adults by providing them with sips of cool water while doing his own best to plant saplings. Other junior SSE children were seen filling buckets and the wheelbarrows constantly with wood mulch and wheeling them to the volunteers.

We were encouraged in our service to the environment when the member of Parliament for Mississauga – Erin Mills, Ms Iqra Khalid paid an impromptu visit to the site. The tireless effort of all volunteers who attended the event and with the support from the staff of City of Mississauga, we succeeded in planting 151 saplings! Our accomplishment in our Swami’s name was doubly sweet as we all were fortunate to have been involved in making a difference to the health of the environment.

Another opportunity to plant trees came our way on May 5^th,2018, when Earth Day was celebrated by the Toronto-York Sathya Sai Centre. 40 adults and 20 SSE children from the Sri Sathya Sai Baba Centre of Toronto-York participated in this event that was organized by the City of Toronto at Downsview Dells Park. Over 200 volunteers from the City and five other organizations from across the city joined the effort to protect the environment. Together, volunteers planted 400 small trees across a designated field in the park.