Tom Thomson Students Visit City Hall to Thank the Urban Forestry Staff and Leave With a Swag Bag

By Pepper Parr

June 25^th, 2026

BURLINGTON, ON

It was one of those feel-good stories that had a bus-load of students from the Tom Thomson elementary school bused to city hall to receive certificates from the Mayor.

Tom Thomson Elementary School students.

The reason behind this was the cutting down of trees.

The students wanted to know why trees were cut down at the nearby Optimist Park and wrote the Mayor asking  – Why?

The Mayor took up the opportunity and put the students in touch with people at the Urban Forestry department, who met with the students at the school to explain that the trees had reached the end of their life cycle and needed to be cut down before branches fell off and hurt people.

Mayor Meed Ward showing the cards the students had prepared for the Forestry staff.

The students decided they would create Thank You cards for the Forestry people who were presented to them at city hall, where everyone was crowded into a Council Chamber that could barely hold them all.

The Urban Forestry staff helped the students to plant a dozen replacement trees. They were shown how to properly plant trees and how to care for them.

The students also managed to get a Canada Trees Grant to plant hundreds of trees.

The student then decided they wanted to thank the Urban Forestry staff and created individual Thank You cards that were given to Forestry staff at city hall.

Crowding a bunch of students into the horseshoe proved to be a challenge.

Crowding a bunch of students into the horseshoe proved to be a challenge.

But it was a nice occasion, and the Mayor made a point of saying that young people were always welcome at city hall.

It was a great photo op. Lots of parents would see the Mayor as their kind of person, and with an election coming up – this is just the kind of thing a savvy politician would do.  And if anything, Mayor Meed Ward is a very savvy politician.

The fear is that this kind of event will be taken as a great example of engaging the community.

It was no such thing:  It was a great photo-op, a chance to let kids see City Hall and come away with a piece of paper signed by the Mayor.

Meed Ward told the students there was a swag bag for them on the way out.

Engagement?  Not quite.