Nora Grace-Flood photo
Jemar, Jessica Marie, and Jebrell, the children of late teacher Marites Siervo, water a tree planted in their mom's memory.
Riverside Academy senior Davon Hardgrove shoveled dirt over the roots of a Zelkova tree planted in memory of a late principal who led his school through tough times — and pledged to continue her legacy of community service throughout his own life.
Attendees gathered for Friday morning's Arbor Day event.
A crowd of city officials, school administrators, students like Hardgrove and community members convened outside the transitional school at 103 Hallock Ave. Friday morning to plant the Zelkova and a budding Japanese tree lilac not just in observance of Arbor Day, but in tribute to two recently passed educators, former Principal Wanda Gibbs and chemistry teacher Marites Siervo.
Riverside Principal Derek Stephenson: “As those trees grow, they grow in our hearts, too.”
“We will never forget them,” said Riverside Principal Derek Stephenson of Gibbs and Siervo. “As those trees grow, they grow in our hearts, too.”
Those gathered for the ceremony agreed that the services provided by the saplings — from producing oxygen to filtering water to shading students, passerby and sidewalks — mirrored the kind of care offered by Gibbs and Siervo to Riverside, the last transitional school in New Haven which provides a destination for students struggling in traditional classrooms, as well as the broader New Haven community.
Read more about Wanda Gibbs, who grew up in New Haven and served the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) system for years including in her capacity as Riverside principal beginning in 1994, here. She passed away at 70 years of age last July due to cancer.
Gibbs’ family sat beside the children and husband of Marites Siervo, a beloved Riverside chemistry teacher who passed away in June 2020 in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, as attendees took turns remembering both educators Friday.
“Siervo, affectionately known as Tess, was more than a teacher — she was a friend, a family member and a phenomenal cook,” Stephenson said. He recalled how Siervo would often cook up delicious Filipino dishes to share with her pupils and colleagues.
Gibbs, meanwhile, was a “tough New Havener that shielded her students,” just like the “urban tree that provides shade,” Stephen analogized. “She never swayed in her service to the Riverside community,” he said, and neither would the newly planted Zelkova.
When it comes to planting trees, Mayor Justin Elicker (pictured below) said, “the most important thing to do is to find someone to steward that tree.”
“If you don’t care for it, it won’t survive. That’s such a metaphor for the work you’re all doing here — you’re all people in our community focusing on stewarding young people so they can grow, so they can blossom, so they can reach their full potential.”
Nora Grace-Flood photo
The trees were provided by the Urban Resources Initiative (URI) — read more about that environmental nonprofit here. Renters, homeowners and businesses can all request free trees from URI by calling 203 – 432-6189, so long as they’re willing to water the trees during their first three years.
The students of Riverside will work together to take care of the two toddler Japanese trees during that vulnerable time period.
On Friday, a group of students left their biology class to join ceremony attendees and parks department workers in covering the two trees’ roots with fresh soil, mulch and wood chips before giving both a generous watering.
Jemar, Jessica Marie, and Jebrell Siervo.
Siervo’s 23-year-old daughter, Jessica Marie, told the Independent as she watched the plantings with her two brothers, Jembrell, 17, and Jemar, 29, that the event made her remember how “even during our regular family grocery shopping trips, my mom would always get candy for her students.”
“I’d always known she was personable and people liked her. But the fact that people are still thinking about her, the fact that you can make an impact like that, is eye-opening for me.”
Relatives and friends of the late Wanda Gibbs take a photo of a commemorative plaque of the late principal made by members of the Riverside community.
Nearby, Claudette Robinson Thorpe, a social worker at Riverside, chatted with her former colleague and another lifelong friend of Wanda Gibbs, Pamela Monk Kelley, about Gibbs’ role in bringing a face-forward, hands-on approach to the alternative school.
“This school is nothing without her legacy bringing it to fruition,” said Thorpe. “We all have to move on and find replacements, but she’ll always be the backbone of this school.”
In the meantime, Thorpe said, “I can’t wait to see the blooming, the blossoms” outside the schools’ windows this spring.
D'Shawn Coleman and Davon Hardgrove clean up chairs from the event in an effort to do right by their community - and inspire another student to join in.
Hardgrove and his peer, 15-year-old D’Shawn Coleman, said they never met Gibbs or Siervo.
But after hearing family and friends share “stories upon stories,” Coleman said, “It felt like I had met them — I was getting a little teary.”
He said he was “grateful” for a chance to participate in the tree plantings, because as he readies for graduation “it’s like having a special way to leave my mark within the school.”
He said that Siervo and Gibbs “gave us a chance to live on in their names, just by being a part of this school. This school made me the person I am today. And I’m gonna do my hardest to leave my own mark, and to leave my name in a positive way.”
Hardgrove and Coleman then spotted NHPS Office of Youth, Family & Community Supervisor Kermit Carolina picking up folding chairs from the day’s event.
“Hey, hey, stop, we got those chairs, we got them!” Hardgrove assured him. Stacking the chairs on either arm, he instructed the teachers who were cleaning up: “Go get some rest or whatever.”