VALDOSTA — The Valdosta Tree Commission celebrated Arbor Day Thursday by planting the latest of 64 new trees at Sunset Hill Cemetery.

This year marks 38 years of Valdosta being a designated “Tree City USA” community. This designation shows that Valdosta is committed to growing and maintaining its urban forest.

“I urge all citizens to support efforts to care for our trees and woodlands, and to support our city’s beautification and forestry program,” said Mayor Scott James Matheson during the ceremony’s proclamation.

Arbor Manager Angela Bray spoke about the Georgia ReLeaf grant the City of Valdosta Arbor Division received from the Georgia Forestry Commission, which allowed them to plant 64 trees in the Sunset Hill Cemetery over the past month.

In conjunction with this grant, the Arbor Division also partnered with Public Works to plant 51 trees down Sustella Street.

The Tree Commission hopes that these efforts will help offset the damage done by Hurricane Idalia.

“We had no idea that we would receive that much devastation,” said Moore. “We lost so many trees, and I didn’t think that we were ever gonna get it cleaned up.”

Moore said that the community came together to help and managed to clean up Valdosta in less than six months.

Moore said that after the initial cleanup the Tree Commission came together to start the Regrow Valdosta Project. The $25,000 project is funded by the Tree Commission and aims to award money to local properties to start replanting trees around Valdosta.

So far the Regrow Valdosta project has awarded the Valdosta City Schools System and VSU $5,000 each to replant trees.

As far as measures to ensure the maintenance of new trees, Moore said the Arbor Division for the city of Valdosta frequently monitors newly planted trees.

“The [Arbor Division] makes sure [trees] are being watered, makes sure they’re being properly taken care of, and we do have inventory systems in place to try and inventory all of trees that are planted and make sure we maintain them,” she said.

The tree planted Thursday for the Arbor Day ceremony was a live oak. Valdosta Tree Commission Chairman Brent Moore said it was chosen so it could be a large canopy tree.