The Osceola County branch of the Boys and Girls Club planted a sapling with the genetics of a champion in celebration of Earth Day.

To the beat of the club’s drum corps, children from the club paraded outside Wednesday afternoon to watch the final shovels of dirt plant a dahoon holly tree in front of their current facilities on Thacker Avenue in Kissimmee.

Tappan Tree Farm in Duette, Florida donated the tree, in partnership with the nonprofit organization, Sustainable Land Development International, and the Destiny project. The sapling tree is a genetic clone of a “champion tree,” which indicates the largest identified tree of the each species in the nation. The “mother” of the Boys and Girls Club’s new tree was discovered and preserved in a real estate development just north of Tampa.

“This is actually a rooted cutting from that mother national champion female dahoon holly,” Terry Mock, executive director for the nonprofit, said. “So the exact genetics of the mother tree now exist in this tree. Technically, scientifically, botanically, it is the same tree.”

Yolonda Londono, vice president of global social responsibility for Tupperware, the major sponsor for the club’s new facilities, called the tree a “beautiful symbol” for the Boys and Girls Club.

“As the children will take this tree, temporarily, caring for it, nurturing it, it represents the same type of initiative that we know we’ll be seeing in the kids: it’s laying down roots, stretching up high, reaching for the sky,” she said during her speech. “And that is progress and the potential that every one of these children has.”

“Sustainable Land Development International is an organization dedicated to “balancing the needs of people, planet and profit,” Mock said.

“A big part of the solution in achieving sustainability is to rebuild our forests and why not start with the genetics of the old growth superior trees?” he said. “The program has been more popular up north. We’re trying to stimulate more interest here in Florida because we’ve got more species here than any other state in the country. If nothing else, we’re preserving the genetics for future research.”

Virtually no research has been done on the genetics of trees, which are very complicated, as trees have been around for hundreds of millions of years longer than humans have, Mock said.

The National Register of Big Trees keeps record of the champion trees of each species.

“We plan to make this an annual tradition and donate a champion tree clone every Earth Day to a deserving local organization in an effort to help keep the valuable legacy of Florida champion trees alive.” Anthony V. Pugliese III, managing partner of Destiny, stated in a press release about the event.

The new tree was planted in a bag that will contain its roots so the tree can be moved with the Boys and Girls Club as it relocates to its new facilities to be built this year on Dyer Boulevard.