Billings Public Schools has been award a $37,000 grant to plant trees on 14 school campuses to increase natural shade, act as a natural safety barrier and boost education. Ponderosa Elementary School is one of the schools that will benefit from this. The head custodian at the school, Rollie Gramley, remembers when some of the first trees were planted on campus. I was one of the first students here in 1966 when it opened up," Gramley said on Tuesday. Every Arbor Day, we would plant a tree. It was kind of a tradition back then. So this pine tree here, the other one in the back here, that's this big. All pretty much all the trees around the building I helped plant over the years. The students would place time capsules with everyone's name in the ground with each tree. "My siblings went here. My children went here. My grandson even went here," Gramley said. Weve got a long history here.He's excited for the children at the school to get to experience what he did nearly 60 years ago. It'd be something for these children to remember years down the road, Gramley said. The principal of Ponderosa Elementary School, Allison Evertz, is thrilled the students will get to be involved when they start planting the trees in April. All the students will get to participate in planting trees, but then I think in the bigger scheme they get to be part of stewardship, they get to see that some of their actions have lasting and long-term impacts, Evertz said. "I like the impact it's going to have on the larger community, and I think it does have a lot of significance." The grant is from the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Inflation Reduction Act to support the Billings Schools Urban Tree Canopies. It was to provide trees and cover in schools in disadvantaged areas, said Scott Reiter, the executive director of facilities for Billings Public Schools. "We hired an arborist to help us with this plan. And it involved training for our ground staff in planting trees, and maintaining trees and for planting of increasing our trees population." The grant money will pay for a variety of things for this project, from hiring the arborist, who has been working with the city of Billings for several years, to curriculum supplies for classrooms. "It was a lot better than just having someone go out and pick a tree and plop it down wherever. There was never a plan for it. Now we have a plan of where they should go, what type of trees should be planted, and that type of thing too," Reiter said. "Trees are great and it's great to have a plan for the trees and just do it the right way." The 14 schools eligible for trees are: Burlington Elementary, Lewis & Clark Middle School, Senior High School, McKinley Elementary, Miles Avenue Elementary, Washington Elementary, Broadwater Elementary, Newman Elementary, Orchard Elementary, Riverside Middle School, Ponderosa Elementary, Castle Rock Middle School, Sandstone Elementary and Bench Elementary.