Volunteers plant shade trees at Wisner Park

After they finished tamping down the soil around their newly planted oak, the small group of volunteers realized the trunk was a little off-center, adjusted it with a tug, and finally stepped back to admire their work for the first time.

“Look, this tree has an acorn,” realized Jacob Owens. “Somewhere there’s a squirrel that’s been waiting for this tree.”

A squirrel, perhaps, but certainly a neighborhood: The tree was one of 17 planted around Wisner Playground on Saturday morning, the latest in a series of loving upgrades to the Uptown park. First, the decrepit old pavilion and its store of dead pigeons was demolished in early 2010. Then, in the spring, the colorful slides and climbing toys were installed by KaBOOM! and a host of volunteers, with wooden benches, picnic tables with chessboard tops, and an outdoor classroom all around it.

“But through the whole idea, we’re thinking that we’d have to plant trees at some later date,” said Stacy Grabert, one of the many Friends of Wisner Park out at the tree planting Saturday morning.

Now that the fall tree-planting season has arrived, the group raised money Friday night through its customary fundraiser, a pub crawl through a number of Uptown bars. By selling drink tickets at The King Pin, Le Bon Temps Roule, Grits Bar and F&M Patio Bar, they raised $600 to partner with Hike for KaTREEna to plant the trees.

While supervising the tree planting, Hike for KaTREEna founder Monique Pilié demonstrated the unique ability to swing a pickaxe and take calls on her cell phone’s Bluetooth earpiece at the same time. Her organization, she said, began as a service project after Hurricane Katrina wiped out 100,000 trees around the city, 70 percent of the canopy that characterized so many neighborhoods. The trees at Wisner are among the more than 7,500 she’s planted since 2006.

“Trees are such a big part of the culture here,” Pilié said. “But they were all gone.”

The particular oak that Owens helped plant will be dedicated to Sister Eileen Sullivan, longtime leader of the nearby Xavier University Preparatory Academy. Until her death in August, Sullivan played a significant role in pushing for the renovation of the playground, and the school’s sports teams now use the nearby fields for softball and other sports, said Owens, the school’s assistant principal.

“She loved the children so much that she was willing to do whatever it takes,” Owens said. “She did a lot of praying to make sure it took place.”

The way that the vagrants who formerly congregated around Wisner’s crumbling old structures have been replaced by children on bright new slides is emblematic, Owens said, of the return of young families to the city of New Orleans. Many of Saturday’s volunteers, like Friends of Wisner Playground committee member Adrienne Altman, bring their young children to the park; others, like the members of Vintage Church on Magazine Street, simply enjoy improving the neighborhood.

True to Sullivan’s wishes, Xavier students have also been consistent in helping with the park’s transformation, and on Saturday, a small contingent were planting trees with the leadership of Athletic Director Don McGhee, who also marveled at the change at the site.

“It’s definitely more beautiful than it was before the storm,” McGhee said.

The playground remains a work in progress, however, Grabert said. As it grows in popularity, its maintenance needs are growing as well. The Friends of Wisner Playground hope they can soon refurbish the basketball courts, and find more permanent litter solutions than the lightweight trash cans that get blown over every windy day.

On the whole, Grabert said, the volunteers’ investment in the park is returning in kind.

“This is such a pull for the neighborhood. We’re seeing a lot more kids here,” she said. “We can see the neighborhood changing around it.”