Hundred of new little seedlings and saplings — blue spruce, tulip, white pine and more — are taking root all over Three Oaks this week, after the community's first-ever formal Arbor Day celebration.

In bright sunshine and warm breezes, the River Valley garden Club and the new Friends of Three Oaks group spread the arboreal spirit among young and old alike as they passed out young trees and urged the regreening of Three Oaks on Friday and Saturday, April 27 and 28.

"A savings bank for squirrel and mouse; for the robin and the wren, an apartment house," read Charlotte Omohundro, president of the River Valley Garden Club, to fifth-grade students at Three Oaks Elementary School on Friday. "Anything we can plant and grow is really wonderful."

Omohundro and her gardening colleagues kicked off the Arbor Day festivities with a presentation of trees to the youngsters. They then took to the classroom aisles and passed a three-year-old blue spruce seedling to each of the 51 students, along with detailed, printed instructions on how to plant the thin-needled twigs.

"There's been so much rain ately that the earth is really just waiting to welcome these trees now," she told the children. "Be sure to plant each one deep enough, with its roots pointing straight down, in a large enough hole to provide proper growth."

Although the seedlings barely reached the children's knees, Omohundro advised the youngsters to "look up" before settling on a home for their new trees.

"Right now, it's just a little thing, but this tree grows up to be as tall as a five story building," she said. "Like you, it;s got a lot of growing to do so make sure it has the room it needs to grow up tall. Plant it carefully and you will watch it grow up to become a wonderful home for our birds and other wildlife."

By Saturday, all eyes were on Carver Park downtown, where the fledgling non-profit Frinds of Three Oaks and local arborist Christian Siewert kicked off their first fund-raiser in honor of Arbor Day. "We're a community that's named after a tree, and yet we've never had an Arbor Day celebration," said Friends organizer Beth Denton. "It's really been a dream of Chris, who's a home-grown arborist, to have an Arbor Day event in Three Oaks. So here we are."

The Friends began as a group of friends "who used to play basketball together," Denton said. In the course of their get-togethers, the friends began musing about the absence of an organized residents group that could spearhead social and civic activities in the tiny town.

"We've got a business association in town, but we really wanted to do something that could include everybody and in turn, benefit everybody," she said. "Our first project will be putting a new roof on the Three Oaks Township Library, which it sorely needs. Then we'll go from there."

During the Friends' membership drive, there was a tree to suit everyone at Carver Park on Saturday. Friends members, their children and their freinds hand-packed an assortment of seedlings for sale, while Siewert and his crew hauled five-foot white pines and gingkos for those more interested in trees as landscape tools.

Another table was manned by youngsters who brought bell pepper seedlings and seed-grown tomato plants to sell. Their proceeds were also earmarked for the library roof.

Joe Mullins is in his 80s and has been coming to Three Oaks from Chicago since 1934, when his family farmed just east of town. He was proudly sporting a Friends of Three Oaks T-shirt during the Carver park festivities.

"I can remember walking to Three oaks from Union Pier for an ice cream down at the fountain," he recalled. "The town is really remarkably unchanged since then. All around us there's change, but not much here in Three Oaks.

"Except for Friends of Three Oaks," he added. "That's great."