 Hello, Columbia. Welcome to our edition of Telling Our Story Exploring the Parks. I am your host, Wanda Austin Herndon. Join us as we explore our parks. Columbia, welcome to Telling Our Story, our edition of Urban Forestry. Today we're here at the Marvin Heller Garden on Macduffey Avenue. Today we're celebrating Arbor Day. Today's children and families often have limited opportunities to connect with natural environment. Richard LeVold called this phenomenon nature-deficient disorder. In his book, The Last Child in the Woods, and opened the nation's eyes to the developmental effects that nature has on our children. He documented how modern family life has changed dramatically in the last two decades. Children spend more time viewing television and playing video games on computers than they do being physically active outside. Families are eating more processed, high-calorie foods due to their busy schedules, which makes families sit down meals a rare event. These changes have led to an epidemic of childhood obesity, which presents serious health threatens for children, including heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, and social and psychological problems. Today more than one-third of our children are considered overweight and obese. Healthy, urban forests maximize community benefits and improve quality of life in communities. From all the work that's been done, it's come a long way. It's beautiful now. It's a place to come and relax, have coffee, have your sandwich, lunch with someone. So I'm loving it. I think it's good for the community. Management of healthy, sustainable community forests involve careful planning, protection, selection, and proper planning and maintenance. Urban forest consistently declining at a devastating rate of about 175 acres per year, which is 36 million trees. To improve the health of sustainable of urban and community forests, communities must recognize the tremendous impact and importance of urban trees and green infrastructures and improve the maintenance of these assets throughout the planning and more proactive approach that focus on trees preservation during development of communities. Just like the work of the land because it's really fun to learn about all the plants that we get to put in our little garden and I'm excited to try them. As the globe heats up, cities across America are taking a fresh look at our trees. We must take care of the two most precious of commodities and that's our children and our environment. Thank you all for joining us today at Marvin Hiller Garden and Celebration of Overday. I am your host, Wanda Austin Herndon along with Calvin Williams. Join us again for our next edition of Urban Forestry, rediscovering our urban forest throughout the As with all our parks, our mission here at the City of Columbia Parks and Recreation is to change lives through a culture of transformational leadership, innovation, and phenomenal customer service. Thank you for joining us today and please join us in the future for more episodes of telling our story, exploring the park. And remember, we are Columbia.