Art Van Furniture Donates 3,000 Trees For Arbor Day!
Art Van Furniture is a family-owned company that started with one small 4,000 square foot store in 1959.

Art Van Furniture celebrated Arbor Day on 27 April 2007 by donating trees to area schools and organizations for planting. The company has purchased 3,000 Norway and White Spruce trees from the Macomb Conservation District in Richmond, Michigan, for the programme.

According to the National Arbor Day Foundation, the first Arbor Day began when Nebraska newspaper editor J. Sterling Morton proposed a tree planting holiday to the State Board of Agriculture in the United States in 1872. Throughout the 1870s, other States passed legislation to observe Arbor Day and the tradition began in schools in 1882.

In 1885, the Michigan Legislature resolved "that the Governor is hereby requested to call the attention of the people of the State to the importance of planting trees for ornament and by naming a day upon which the work shall be given special attention to be known as Arbor Day."

Michigan's "Keep Michigan Beautiful" programme in 1966 led Governor George Romney to extend the tradition to a week with an emphasis on the last Friday of April.

Organizations receiving the trees include: Ann Arbor Public Schools, Battle Creek Public Schools, Bay City Public Schools, Bendle Public Schools, Dearborn Public Schools, Flint Community Schools, Fraser Public Schools, Herrick District Library (Holland), Howell Public Schools, Jackson Public Schools, Kent County Intermediate School District (ISD), L'Anse Creuse Public Schools, Lansing School District, Livonia Public Schools, Muskegon Intermediate School District (ISD), Muskegon Public Schools, City of Novi, Novi Community School District, Port Huron Area School District, Portage Public Schools, Royal Oak Public Schools, City of Royal Oak, Saginaw Public Schools, Southfield Public Schools, Taylor School District, Traverse City Area Public Schools, Utica Community Schools, Warren Consolidated Schools, Waterford Public Schools and Wayne-Westland Community School District. Art Van is pleased to be partnering with community schools and organizations to keep this tradition alive. Trees will be planted as part of various projects - from school landscaping to community parks, from support for class projects to gifts to students for home planting.

Organizations were chosen from communities in which Art Van operates stores. >>More