Professionals from Sosit in Bureti constituency spent Easter Saturday in leading area residents in planting 2,000 tree seedlings at Sosit Primary School.
The Kenya Forestry Services (KFS) among other partners provided the tree seedlings to the school community as part of the efforts to increase forest cover in the area.
The trees planting exercise which drew hundreds of eager residents and pupils saw the seedlings planted in less than an hour.
Sosit Professionals chairman Dr. Kenneth Chelule who is also the Kenya Research and Development Institute (KRDI) deputy director said the planting of trees was one of the ways of the area elites had settled on as means of improving the environmental standards of their former primary school.
“Our aim is to contribute to the country’s wider goal of increasing its forest cover which currently is at an alarming rate of less than 10 per cent,” he said.
During the exercise, the Sosit professionals also bestowed gifts on 50 retired teachers, 12 retired subordinate staff of Sosit Primary School.
Each of the retired teachers received a heifer while the other groups received a sheep each.
“Sosit professionals have been thinking of rewarding our former teachers especially those who had since retired as well as the subordinate staff,” Dr. Chelule.
He added that they had used a portion of the Sh300, 000 the 3,000 professionals had raised to purchase heifers and the goats.
“The balance of the money is going to be donated to Sosit primary school for infrastructural development,” said Dr. Chelule.
David Koskei, a 69- year-old former Sosit Primary School teacher who received a heifer from his former pupils said it was his first ever gift from his former pupils.
“My teaching career spanned 29 years and in all that period I never received a gift from my former pupils. It’s a miracle today for them to have remembered the work we did to mould them and decided to reward us with heifers,” he said.
