MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Nearly 120 first-grade students joined foresters on Wednesday, Oct. 8 to plant five trees at Humboldt Park in Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood during the 27th annual Tree Day celebration.

Foresters and naturalists from Milwaukee County Parks, the City of Milwaukee Forestry Division and Wehr Nature Center led the effort along the first base line of the Ken Keltner baseball field behind the park pavilion.

Students from Trowbridge Street School, Parkside School of the Arts and St. Lucas Lutheran School participated in three planting sessions throughout the day.

They wrote their names on slips of paper to drop into each planting hole.

Laureen Stirmel of Humboldt Park Friends spoke how the kids' names being in the ground has real meaning, saying, "That signifies that they are part of the tree because the paper will decompose and the tree will use it for its nutritious food."

The native Wisconsin trees were purchased with donations to Humboldt Park Friends, continuing a tradition begun in 1998 by the late Bay View resident Ruth Simos.