Have lunch on us and get ready for more trees!
A peek at the spread from last year's Volunteer Picnic
By Andy Meeks
In less than six weeks, the first shovels will hit the ground, and the first trees will be planted, to begin Friends of Trees‘ 23rd planting season. Over the past 23 years, Friends of Trees staff—and, most importantly, tens of thousands of volunteers—have planted more than 450,000 trees in the Portland-Vancouver metro region (and beginning last year, in the Eugene-Springfield area). That’s an astounding number, and it would not be possible without the dedication of every volunteer that joins Friends of Trees. Whether it’s someone planting for the first time or a crew leader in their 17th season, every moment counts.
On Saturday, September 22, we’d like to say thanks.
No matter how often or seldom you’ve worked with us, we’d love to have you join us at Colonel Summers Park between 11:30 am and 3:00 pm for a tasty and plentiful picnic lunch provided by Nawitka Catering. Plus we’ll have games and raffle prizes galore. Friends and family are always welcome.
Maybe you'll be a lucky raffle prize winner this year?
In the 2011-12 planting season, 3,490 individuals volunteered 35,092 hours of their time to help with all aspects of our operations—from planning to planting to everything in between. That’s the equivalent of more than 17 full-time staff members!
But our work not only doubled with those hours. It increased exponentially. We planted more trees than ever last season and engaged more members of the public than ever before. We held nine training events for key volunteers in our continuing efforts to ‘train the trainers.’ And we look forward to doing it all again this season.
Click HERE for a link to our online calendar showing our 72 planting events planned in the Portland-Vancouver area for this season. This is our Eugene-Springfield calendar, which will be completed in the next few months.
We hope you can join us for the afternoon—or even for an hour—to celebrate our past achievements and get excited for the season to come. We look forward to working with you again this season!
– Meeks is the Volunteer & Outreach Program Manager for Friends of Trees.
Hello! Just wanted to say “Hi”, and let you know that Community Supported Everything will also be holding our Fall Equinox event in Colonel Summers Park on the 22nd. Community Supported Everything is a grassroots (or should I say treeroots) movement to grow interdependence and community and support. We do this through weekly circles where people share what their passions are, what they could do if they could do anything at all, what skills they have, and any requests and offers for the community they have. We have been doing this every week since April, and our community is growing. I look forward to seeing you all on the 22nd! I am especially interested in Friends of Trees because one of my personal projects is to buy nut trees for people around the world who live in towns or cities, so we have a good source of protein and oils for ourselves in the future. Big hugs, Diane Emerson
There are many ways for people to get involved with Friends of Trees to help with our mission of building community and planting trees. I look forward to meeting you on Saturday to talk more about it.