The Tree-Planting Competition
UNITED STATESSHORT STORY11
Naledi
2/25/20251 min read
Naledi’s school announced a competition between classes.
The class that planted the most trees would win a picnic.
Students became excited.
Within a week, dozens of seedlings surrounded the school grounds.
Naledi’s class planted forty-two, more than anyone else.
Then the dry season began.
Most students stopped paying attention.
Seedlings wilted. Goats ate several. Others were planted too close together.
Naledi told her teacher the competition had encouraged planting but not care.
“The goal was environmental action,” the teacher said.
“Dead trees are not environmental action.”
Naledi created a survival chart.
Each class had to record how many trees remained alive after one month, three months, and six months.
Suddenly, the competition changed.
Students built simple guards from scrap wood. They organised watering teams. Older students researched native species that needed less water.
Naledi’s class lost many of its original forty-two trees. Only eighteen survived the first three months.
Another class had planted just twenty, but nineteen survived.
They won the picnic.
Some students complained.
“We planted more!”
“You planted them,” Naledi said. “They kept theirs alive.”
The school changed future projects. Success would be measured through survival, not just numbers planted.
One year later, several trees were tall enough to provide small patches of shade.
Naledi sat beneath one during lunch.
It was not one her class had planted.
That no longer mattered.
The competition had begun by asking who could do the most in one day.
It ended by teaching everyone that meaningful work had to continue after the photograph was taken and the excitement ended.