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I wanted to post this to see if anyone around the area wanted to be a part of this program. There are about 10 companies on board this year so far.
By Rebecca Fater
Walking his 10-year-old to elementary
school every day, Tom
“Ace” Gallagher of Hanover
Township, N.J, felt confident his son was
safe. Until, one day, he looked up.
“There were a couple of obvious dead
branches hanging over the path and a couple
dead trees,” says Gallagher, owner of
Ace Gallagher Stump Grinding Services
LLC in Whippany. “I said to my wife, ‘I
don’t want to sound like a typical parent.
But this is a really dangerous path.’”
Gallagher turned his concern into action.
He wrote a letter to Hanover Township
superintendent Scott Pepper and volunteered
his company’s services. Gallagher
didn’t realize it at the time, but the resulting
hours of donated work was the
unofficial launching of what has now
grown into the volunteer program known
locally as “One Day, One School.”
“My policy is, if everybody just gives a
little bit of their time it will make a really
big difference,” explains Gallagher, who
hopes the program will catch on with more
tree companies and communities in New
Jersey and beyond. “It only takes one guy
like me in the tree business to look up and
say, ‘This path is horrendous’.”
Since that initial project, Gallagher has
turned the idea into a full-fledged volunteer
effort aimed at cleaning up school grounds
so they are safer and cleaner, at no cost to
the district. His partner in volunteerism is
Rick Close, district manager of the Morris
Plains, N.J., office of The Davey Tree
Expert Company.
Also a father of a school-aged child,
Close warmed quickly to the One Day, One
School concept when Gallagher
approached him with the idea earlier this
year.
“Something like this rings a bell with
almost anybody who is responsible for
school communities,” Close says. “Most
municipal grounds people probably are not
tuned into the idea of looking at trees in
terms of safety. They’re probably more
involved with mowing the grass on the
property. They may not see the necessity of
maintaining the trees on the property.”
That necessity was emphasized in
Florham Park, N.J., last June, where Scott
Eveland, township councilman and mayorelect,
heard about the One Day, One
Fallen limbs pile up along the property line.
Branching Out
While the overgrowth and debris surely was an eyesore, it
constited a safety hazard.
Dead and rotting tree limbs lie among undergrowth adjacent to the Ridgedale Middle School baseball field in Florham
Park, N.J. About a week before the cleanup, winds blew a roughly 12-inch diameter limb down near the bleachers.
School concept and was determined to
conduct an event locally. He brought
Gallagher to a baseball field by the
Ridgedale Middle School and showed him
the mess of overgrown trees, brush and
trash bags overflowing with garbage.
Gallagher agreed to the project and they
scheduled an early June Saturday for the
job – seemingly just in time. About a week
before the appointed cleanup, high winds
sent a tree limb measuring about one foot
in diameter crashing down by the bleachers
where parents usually sit to cheer on their
student athletes.
“We heard a crack. We looked up and
watched one of the dead trees crack and
fall directly into the center of the field,”
recalls William Ronzitti, superintendent of
Florham Park Public Schools, who witnessed
the event. “If there had been
children or families there – this was such
an unsafe situation. It only affirmed that we
had to do this.”
Later that week, Gallagher and Close
showed up with their trucks, crews and
equipment. Eveland, shirtsleeves rolled up,
arrived with student and teacher volunteers
and trucks from the town’s public works
department. Ronzitti fired up a grill and
cooked up hot dogs for the workers. Alocal
hardware store donated rakes.
Close remembers that the target ballfield
needed all the help it could get.
“They were old trees, mainly maples and
oaks, that had probably never been cared
for,” he says. “It was something that had
never been addressed.”
The eight-hour day involved safety pruning
of nearly 40 trees, Close says. While
climbers pruned and cut, Close dragged
brush away from the field and Gallagher
ground the stumps of between 15 and 20
trees that were removed completely. After
the crews completed a section of trees, student
volunteers moved in to clean up.
“The before and after was amazing,”
Eveland says. “On the municipal side, we
got the (local) board of education involved
and a bunch of student volunteers, which is
awesome to see. They weren’t just leaning
on rakes. They were out there, working
hard, investing themselves in their own
school, poison ivy and everything.”
The amount of work performed that day
probably equaled between $10,000 and
$15,000 in labor and equipment costs, he
estimates.
“This was a tremendous way to clean up
the school with some necessary work that
did not cost the taxpayers a dime,” says
Eveland.
“It would have been too expensive for us
to undertake this year,” says Ronzitti. “It
wasn’t in our budget. And that’s not fair to
this community, especially the children, to
have such beautiful new fields but no place
where their families can come watch
them.”
Aside from the financial boon, One Day,
One School provided Florham Park students
with an invaluable civics lesson as
well, he adds.
“One of the incidental benefits for us is it
brought everybody here together as a
team,” says Ronzitti, who became the district’s
superintendent approximately a year
and a half ago. “One of the things I’ve tried
to do is build a community team. This one
effort on that Saturday went a long way.
We were in this together. We did it together.
It was just a perfect day.”
The sight of eighth graders picking up
empty soda bottles from the school
grounds was a memorable one for
Gallagher. “Now, they’re probably not
going to throw a soda bottle there,” he
says. “And if one of their peers does,
they’ll say, ‘Hey, pick that up.’”
Gallagher is planning another One Day,
One School event in Hanover Township for
early winter and another event in Florham
Park next spring, but he hopes it is only the
beginning. He plans to compile a written
program and make it available for other
interested communities, and tree care companies,
as a resource.
“It’s a program to make a school better
looking and much safer. Safety is the name
of the game,” he says. “We’re able-bodied,
we’re very fortunate. How hard is it for us
Almost the same view as on facing page, but after the cleanup at Ridgedale Middle School.
The area along the driveway into the school and ballfields
is now clear of debris and dangerous limbs and trees.
TREE CARE INDUSTRY – DECEMBER 2007 35
36 TREE CARE INDUSTRY – DECEMBER 2007
to give one or two days a year?”
Despite the willing spirit, the budget,
inevitably, remains the bottom line. Close
hopes that, in the future, local businesses
may be willing to sponsor tree companies
like Davey and Ace financially. These
“partners” would ensure that the crews
would be paid for their time while he and
Gallagher continued offering cost-free tree
services to the schools that badly need it.
“If I went into a community and said,
‘Hey, we’ll safety-prune your trees and it
will cost you this much money,’ the project
would probably be shelved for years,”
Close says. “I can’t volunteer my tree
crews on a regular basis. What we’re looking
at is sponsorships for the next time
from stores or businesses to cover the cost
of my crew. My time would be volunteered.”
Eveland, who will assume mayoral
duties in January, will continue looking for
ways to grow One Day, One School locally.
“It was such a tremendous success that I
think it’s only going to get bigger,” he predicts.
“We took an area of one of these
schools and totally cleaned it up. It was the
springboard for us to continue doing this,
not only here in Florham Park, but in other
school districts as well.”
Gallagher hopes the energy his idea has
generated will continue to spark volunteerism
as word travels.
“Imagine if this is nationwide? There
would be companies all over the country
donating a Saturday,” he says. “It will be
awesome and it won’t cost anything.”
Rebecca Fater is a freelance writer living
in North Andover, Massachusetts.
Some of those involved in the One Day, One School project at Ridgedale Middle School included, from left, Deputy Police
Chief Pat Montuore, Dr. William Ronzitti, Township Councilman and Mayor-elect Scott Eveland; Tom “Ace” Gallagher,
Davey’s Ric Close, and John Csatlos.
Please circle
By Rebecca Fater
Walking his 10-year-old to elementary
school every day, Tom
“Ace” Gallagher of Hanover
Township, N.J, felt confident his son was
safe. Until, one day, he looked up.
“There were a couple of obvious dead
branches hanging over the path and a couple
dead trees,” says Gallagher, owner of
Ace Gallagher Stump Grinding Services
LLC in Whippany. “I said to my wife, ‘I
don’t want to sound like a typical parent.
But this is a really dangerous path.’”
Gallagher turned his concern into action.
He wrote a letter to Hanover Township
superintendent Scott Pepper and volunteered
his company’s services. Gallagher
didn’t realize it at the time, but the resulting
hours of donated work was the
unofficial launching of what has now
grown into the volunteer program known
locally as “One Day, One School.”
“My policy is, if everybody just gives a
little bit of their time it will make a really
big difference,” explains Gallagher, who
hopes the program will catch on with more
tree companies and communities in New
Jersey and beyond. “It only takes one guy
like me in the tree business to look up and
say, ‘This path is horrendous’.”
Since that initial project, Gallagher has
turned the idea into a full-fledged volunteer
effort aimed at cleaning up school grounds
so they are safer and cleaner, at no cost to
the district. His partner in volunteerism is
Rick Close, district manager of the Morris
Plains, N.J., office of The Davey Tree
Expert Company.
Also a father of a school-aged child,
Close warmed quickly to the One Day, One
School concept when Gallagher
approached him with the idea earlier this
year.
“Something like this rings a bell with
almost anybody who is responsible for
school communities,” Close says. “Most
municipal grounds people probably are not
tuned into the idea of looking at trees in
terms of safety. They’re probably more
involved with mowing the grass on the
property. They may not see the necessity of
maintaining the trees on the property.”
That necessity was emphasized in
Florham Park, N.J., last June, where Scott
Eveland, township councilman and mayorelect,
heard about the One Day, One
Fallen limbs pile up along the property line.
Branching Out
While the overgrowth and debris surely was an eyesore, it
constited a safety hazard.
Dead and rotting tree limbs lie among undergrowth adjacent to the Ridgedale Middle School baseball field in Florham
Park, N.J. About a week before the cleanup, winds blew a roughly 12-inch diameter limb down near the bleachers.
School concept and was determined to
conduct an event locally. He brought
Gallagher to a baseball field by the
Ridgedale Middle School and showed him
the mess of overgrown trees, brush and
trash bags overflowing with garbage.
Gallagher agreed to the project and they
scheduled an early June Saturday for the
job – seemingly just in time. About a week
before the appointed cleanup, high winds
sent a tree limb measuring about one foot
in diameter crashing down by the bleachers
where parents usually sit to cheer on their
student athletes.
“We heard a crack. We looked up and
watched one of the dead trees crack and
fall directly into the center of the field,”
recalls William Ronzitti, superintendent of
Florham Park Public Schools, who witnessed
the event. “If there had been
children or families there – this was such
an unsafe situation. It only affirmed that we
had to do this.”
Later that week, Gallagher and Close
showed up with their trucks, crews and
equipment. Eveland, shirtsleeves rolled up,
arrived with student and teacher volunteers
and trucks from the town’s public works
department. Ronzitti fired up a grill and
cooked up hot dogs for the workers. Alocal
hardware store donated rakes.
Close remembers that the target ballfield
needed all the help it could get.
“They were old trees, mainly maples and
oaks, that had probably never been cared
for,” he says. “It was something that had
never been addressed.”
The eight-hour day involved safety pruning
of nearly 40 trees, Close says. While
climbers pruned and cut, Close dragged
brush away from the field and Gallagher
ground the stumps of between 15 and 20
trees that were removed completely. After
the crews completed a section of trees, student
volunteers moved in to clean up.
“The before and after was amazing,”
Eveland says. “On the municipal side, we
got the (local) board of education involved
and a bunch of student volunteers, which is
awesome to see. They weren’t just leaning
on rakes. They were out there, working
hard, investing themselves in their own
school, poison ivy and everything.”
The amount of work performed that day
probably equaled between $10,000 and
$15,000 in labor and equipment costs, he
estimates.
“This was a tremendous way to clean up
the school with some necessary work that
did not cost the taxpayers a dime,” says
Eveland.
“It would have been too expensive for us
to undertake this year,” says Ronzitti. “It
wasn’t in our budget. And that’s not fair to
this community, especially the children, to
have such beautiful new fields but no place
where their families can come watch
them.”
Aside from the financial boon, One Day,
One School provided Florham Park students
with an invaluable civics lesson as
well, he adds.
“One of the incidental benefits for us is it
brought everybody here together as a
team,” says Ronzitti, who became the district’s
superintendent approximately a year
and a half ago. “One of the things I’ve tried
to do is build a community team. This one
effort on that Saturday went a long way.
We were in this together. We did it together.
It was just a perfect day.”
The sight of eighth graders picking up
empty soda bottles from the school
grounds was a memorable one for
Gallagher. “Now, they’re probably not
going to throw a soda bottle there,” he
says. “And if one of their peers does,
they’ll say, ‘Hey, pick that up.’”
Gallagher is planning another One Day,
One School event in Hanover Township for
early winter and another event in Florham
Park next spring, but he hopes it is only the
beginning. He plans to compile a written
program and make it available for other
interested communities, and tree care companies,
as a resource.
“It’s a program to make a school better
looking and much safer. Safety is the name
of the game,” he says. “We’re able-bodied,
we’re very fortunate. How hard is it for us
Almost the same view as on facing page, but after the cleanup at Ridgedale Middle School.
The area along the driveway into the school and ballfields
is now clear of debris and dangerous limbs and trees.
TREE CARE INDUSTRY – DECEMBER 2007 35
36 TREE CARE INDUSTRY – DECEMBER 2007
to give one or two days a year?”
Despite the willing spirit, the budget,
inevitably, remains the bottom line. Close
hopes that, in the future, local businesses
may be willing to sponsor tree companies
like Davey and Ace financially. These
“partners” would ensure that the crews
would be paid for their time while he and
Gallagher continued offering cost-free tree
services to the schools that badly need it.
“If I went into a community and said,
‘Hey, we’ll safety-prune your trees and it
will cost you this much money,’ the project
would probably be shelved for years,”
Close says. “I can’t volunteer my tree
crews on a regular basis. What we’re looking
at is sponsorships for the next time
from stores or businesses to cover the cost
of my crew. My time would be volunteered.”
Eveland, who will assume mayoral
duties in January, will continue looking for
ways to grow One Day, One School locally.
“It was such a tremendous success that I
think it’s only going to get bigger,” he predicts.
“We took an area of one of these
schools and totally cleaned it up. It was the
springboard for us to continue doing this,
not only here in Florham Park, but in other
school districts as well.”
Gallagher hopes the energy his idea has
generated will continue to spark volunteerism
as word travels.
“Imagine if this is nationwide? There
would be companies all over the country
donating a Saturday,” he says. “It will be
awesome and it won’t cost anything.”
Rebecca Fater is a freelance writer living
in North Andover, Massachusetts.
Some of those involved in the One Day, One School project at Ridgedale Middle School included, from left, Deputy Police
Chief Pat Montuore, Dr. William Ronzitti, Township Councilman and Mayor-elect Scott Eveland; Tom “Ace” Gallagher,
Davey’s Ric Close, and John Csatlos.
Please circle
