From The Hermitage to the Pacific: One year of Buy a Tree Initiative
- maristbrothers
- 1 hour ago
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On 27 June 2025, Jenifer Miller, Chair of the Laudato Si’ Action Committee, launched Buy a Tree (BAT), a practical response to Pope Francis’ call in Laudato Si’ to care for our common home. In its first year, BAT has become an important Province-wide project, raising almost AUD $5,000 to support the planting of native trees across the Star of the Sea Province.
Read Jenifer’s reflection on Buy a Tree’s first year and her hopes for its future.
Almost exactly one year ago, on 27 June 2025, I launched the Buy a Tree (BAT) initiative at the Marist Association of St Marcellin Champagnat’s Fourth National Assembly in Brisbane.
At the time, I could not have imagined how much the project would grow in its first year. Today, I am grateful to say that BAT has raised almost AUD $5,000 towards the planting of native trees. More importantly, it has begun to bring people together - students, staff, schools and Marist communities - in a shared response to the environmental challenges facing our Province.
As Chair of the Laudato Si’ Action Committee, the launch was a proud moment for me. It was also a difficult day personally. I had a bad cold, had lost my voice the previous day and was struggling with the bright auditorium lights. Yet none of that mattered once Buy a Tree was officially launched. After so much planning, conversation and encouragement, the project had finally taken its first public step.
A simple response to a serious challenge
Buy a Tree is a simple initiative with an important purpose. It invites people to purchase trees through the Star of the Sea Province website where the BAT webpage is hosted whenever they travel. One tree can be purchased for a domestic return flight or car journey, while two trees can be purchased for an international return flight or ocean cruise. People can also choose to make a contribution that covers several journeys throughout the year.
The funds raised are used to support the planting of native trees in Marist communities. Each tree is planted and cared for locally, helping to ensure that the project is connected to the people and places it is intended to serve.
The first BAT contributions have supported tree planting at The Hermitage, the Marist retreat centre in Mittagong, New South Wales. This has given the project an important beginning: a place where students and staff can see the trees, plant them and understand that care for creation must be expressed in practical action.
Why this matters for our Province
For me, Buy a Tree has always been about much more than planting trees. It is about responding to the reality of the beautiful Pasifika that we call home.
The Star of the Sea Province is the largest Marist Province, comprising eleven countries. Ten of those countries are island nations surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. Across our Province, particularly in the Pacific, climate change and environmental degradation are not distant issues. They are already affecting communities, ecosystems, livelihoods and ways of life.
Kiribati is one of the clearest examples. Made up of 33 low-lying atolls, it faces the very real threat of rising sea levels. Across the Pacific, communities are experiencing coastal erosion, changing weather patterns, the loss of natural ecosystems and increasing pressure on the land and sea that sustain them.
This is why environmental stewardship has to be a priority for us. Our Pacific communities are deeply connected to the ocean and the natural world. When the environment suffers, people suffer too.
In 2021, Br Peter Carroll, then Provincial of the Star of the Sea Province and now Superior General of the Marist Institute, encouraged the Province to take these concerns seriously. Inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, he called us to renew our commitment to ecological responsibility.
Pope Francis reminds us that we are called to hear “both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (Laudato Si’, 49). For me, that call is at the heart of Buy a Tree.
Seeing the first trees take root
One of the most significant moments in the first year of BAT came in November 2025 at the NSW/ACT Student Leaders Gathering at The Hermitage.
During the formal dinner, principals from eighteen Marist schools were each presented with a young tree on behalf of their school. The following day, student leaders planted the first eighteen trees for the Buy a Tree Project.
Watching those students plant the trees was a deeply moving experience for me. It represented the moment when months of work, planning and hope became something real and visible.
I was especially grateful that the MYM Sydney team and I were also able to plant a tree that day. It was a simple act, but it carried great meaning. These trees are now a reminder that young people have an important place in caring for our common home and in shaping the future of this project.
Growing through Marist formation
Footsteps 1 invites participants to deepen their understanding of Marist spirituality and mission. Through the support of the Marist Life Formation team, staff from Marist schools across Australia were invited to plant native trees at The Hermitage as part of their formation experience.
For some participants, it was their first time planting a tree. Each person planted two native trees, creating a practical connection between Marist formation, ecological responsibility and action.
I am grateful that students from NSW and the ACT, as well as staff from Marist schools across Australia, can now participate in tree planting at The Hermitage. It is helping BAT become more than a fundraising initiative; it is becoming an experience of formation, reflection and shared responsibility.
From The Hermitage to the Pacific
The Hermitage has been an important first stage for BAT, but my hope is that the project will increasingly support communities across the Province, especially in the Pacific and Asia.
I am particularly encouraged by the prospect of trees being planted in Cambodia and the Solomon Islands in the near future. These next steps will help ensure that the project’s impact is felt more directly in communities where environmental degradation and climate change are already being experienced.
As the project develops, I hope that BAT can support native tree planting and ecological restoration in island communities affected by rising sea levels, coastal erosion and the loss of ecosystems.
Native trees matter. They support biodiversity, improve air quality, strengthen ecosystems and help reduce the effects of rising temperatures. At a time when trees continue to be cleared around the world, planting and restoring native vegetation is one practical way we can respond.
Keeping the project alive
One of my greatest hopes is that Buy a Tree will continue long after I am no longer involved.
For that to happen, we need to keep building awareness, encouraging ongoing contributions and making BAT part of the everyday life of the Province. I hope that schools, communities, formation programmes and Marist gatherings will continue to find ways to support the project and take part in planting.
The first year of Buy a Tree has shown what can happen when a simple idea is supported by many people. We have raised funds, planted the first trees and created opportunities for students and staff to take action together.
There is still much to do, but I am encouraged by the beginning we have made.
Buy a Tree is not simply about offsetting travel. It is about choosing to care for creation, planting hope for future generations and standing with the communities of our Province who are already living with the consequences of climate change.
-Jenifer Miller, Chair, Laudato Si Commission
If you would like to give BAT a birthday gift, click here - Home | Star Of the Sea Province | Marists of Champagnat
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