In 2018, Westfield Elementary was celebrating the school’s 50th anniversary and Illinois’ 200th anniversary. Westfield LMC director Karl Mennecke thought it would be nice to commemorate the milestones at the school, so he chose to plant the state tree: a white oak.
As he prepared to plant the white oak, Mennecke invited staff from nearby Morton Arboretum to look at the school grounds and share advice on growing in the Westfield ecosystem. The Westfield grounds are a sanctuary for the neighborhood, with wide open green spaces behind the building that stretch to the east branch of the DuPage River. As Mennecke walked with the Morton representative, the arborist mentioned that if staff and students planted enough trees, the school could apply for arboretum status.
“I had no idea that was even an option,” Mennecke said later. “We planted our white oak in honor of Illinois’s bicentennial, and that just kind of spiraled into all this happening.”
Eight years and 30 trees later, Westfield Elementary School was officially accredited as a Level I Arboretum in 2026, one of the few schools in DuPage County to earn this recognition.
The application process was detailed. The school needed to plant at least 25 different varieties of trees and label each one. Westfield also needed to hold a public event. They chose “Oak-tober”, an event where students bring in acorns from their yard and learn how to plant and care for the seedlings. This work was all included in the successful application.
“My goal with this Arboretum is to create a working and living outdoor classroom that students and teachers can use,” Mennecke said. “The biggest thing I want kids to realize is that we are part of the ecosystem. The arboretum is for them. It should be something they take pride in.”
Even after earning the Level I Arboretum status, Westfield hasn’t stopped adding on. On a Thursday morning in spring, four students from the Westfield Garden Club came to school early to help plant three more trees.
“When I was planting the trees, it was the first tree I ever planted,” said fourth grader Anna Rodakowski. “When I’m older and I come back to Westfield, I (will) remember when I planted these trees.”
Mennecke has dreams of adding QR codes to the trees that could lead to a website written by students with information about each tree. In the meantime, he hopes the school is a place where everyone in the neighborhood can learn and enjoy.
“This is the only park for this whole community. It’s for all of us,” he said. “I hope you enjoy and love it. I hope it continues to grow and be a wonderful place for people to come.”
To learn more about the Arboretum application process, go to: https://arbnet.org/
To learn more about Westfield’s Arboretum, go to: https://arbnet.org/morton-register/westfield-elementary-school-and-arboretum/
To see a video with Mennecke and students talking about the Westfield Arboretum, go to: https://youtu.be/6rHGxSL42j0