MATTAPOISETT — Fifth grader Cabot Van Keuren didn’t expect to win the poster contest held by the Mattapoisett Tree Committee at Old Hammondtown School. He joined the contest to have some fun and make some art.

Van Keuren was “just thinking that it’d be a pretty good poster that I could just share with my classmates and my grade,” he said.

Van Keuren and second-place winner Hadlee Weeden were recognized at Old Hammondtown School Friday, March 15 as the winners of the school poster contest. It is part of a statewide competition held for third to fifth graders across the state sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation for Arbor Day.

Van Keuren’s poster will subsequently be submitted for the statewide contest, which has a yearly theme.

The theme of 2024 was “Healthy Trees, Healthy Towns.”

Fifth grader Weeden said trees are important since they give off oxygen. Without them, she said, “our planet would just be empty, nothing.”

And not only do trees provide oxygen, but they make “things a little brighter too,” Weeden said.

Van Keuren said he started thinking about how much “more important trees are” while participating in the contest.

Van Keuren and Weeden were joined at the recognition ceremony at Old Hammondtown School by family, as well as Mattapoisett Tree Committee members Sandy Hering, Nancy Souza and Jodi Bauer, who is also a Select Board member.

“The students did so well,” Hering said. “It was hard to choose the winners honestly.”

The contest was judged by local artists of all types, according to Bauer.

The theme of this year’s contest was “very pertinent,” Hering also said.

Art teacher Greta Anderson facilitated the contest at Old Hammondtown, which had entries from 29 students.

She said the school has participated in the event for over a decade.

Last year, the Old Hammondtown winner, Emma Lowe, also won the statewide contest. The first-place prize is a tree planted at the winner’s school. Indeed, a small, young tree now stands just outside the front of Old Hammondtown.