Ms.Giuditta Gelati, a young official at the city’s peace committee, played a central role in the San Donato Milanese planting. She promotes exchange programs in peace education and organized the planting as an official event of the city. She also invited representatives from other places in Milan whose applications, unfortunately, had been unsuccessful to joining the local executive committee
In the planting site, a large kaki-tree figure was exhibited as its symbol. As volunteers from the local artist society prepared for the planting, children started to turn up at the site one after another. The participants had been given a kaki-colored rope beforehand and decorated themselves in their own manners. Ms. Gelati came up with this wonderful idea when she attended a workshop in Burano, which employed the same idea and impressed her tremendously. In one corner of the planting site, members from the local artist society held an exhibit titled “memory” on the theme of the kaki project. There was also an exhibit in the lobby area which presented the artworks that were produced by school children and students when they participated in the workshop held on an earlier occasion.
Prior to the planting, children painted pictures of the kaki tree and of peace in watercolor and cut them out in the shape of a kaki leaf. In the meantime, children in the lobby area did origami, making animals and flowers with their teachers’ help. In the subsequent MURALES workshop, local artists put these origami animals and flowers on to the pictures of “leaf-less” kaki trees. As more people participated, the four kaki “trees” grew with more “leaves” and bear “fruit.”
Many citizens, including the mayor, gathered at the ceremony, which was carried out while school children from M.L. King elementary school were singing songs of peace. Walking among the children with a microphone in hand was Mr. Andrea Checchi, who was a keen supporter of the project and also one of the participants in the Burano planting. Upon the successful completion of the planting, the musical performance by “ESPRESSIONE CORPOREA “ began with the beat of the percussion. During the performance they vehemently called for a participation in the Kaki Project and the music climaxed when the students invited the children into the centre and the crowd started to dance in circle. At the end of the event, a documentary video produced by the teachers was shown, which contained, among other things, the scene of performance rehearsal and interviews of the participants.
