On International Day of Forests in March 2025, Southside ReLeaf gathered neighbors for an Outdoor Learning Classroom at Ernest Road Park, the first of four new park spaces in the Southside they are developing in collaboration with the City of Richmond. Experts, including Michael Webb, the city’s urban forester, and John Williams, an ecologist with RES, provided neighbors with information about urban forests, healthy ecosystems, and habitat restoration. The RVA Nature Journalers led everyone in an exercise to write haiku poems under the canopy.