By Kimberly Dinwiddie
When most teenagers get their first job, the feeling of freedom and independence is exciting and memorable, although often times the job itself is less exciting. For 16-year-old Lovie Sanders this is not the case.
“This is my first job and I am ecstatic about it,” shared Sanders, whose new job is to guide [...]
About 23 Schnitzer Steel employees enjoyed the fine weather last weekend and helped green the I-205 Multi-Use Path in Lents.
Friends of Trees and its Green Space Initiative program, in partnership with ODOT and Metro, are planting thousands of trees along the transportation corridor over the next three years.
Exactly 600 large trees have already been planted [...]
By Elizabeth Craig
Planting trees and shrubs along the I-205 Multi-Use Path on a cold and windy Saturday morning, 19-year-old Antonio Askew thinks about the future.
“Like if I have kids, I can tell them, ‘Hey, I helped with that,’” said Askew as he pointed to freshly planted trees along the path.
Askew is a graduate of Portland [...]
Saturday morning, the Audubon Society of Portland hosted a sneak peak tour of Collins Sanctuary, a recent Metro purchase with voter-approved dollars.
As the elected officials in the video will tell you (Metro President David Bragdon; Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder; Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish), Metro is partnering with Friends of Trees’ Gift Trees program to [...]
Tags: Audubon, Collins Sanctuary, Gift Trees, Metro, PP&R
As usual, the multimedia team at Portland General Electric continues to create five-star content.
Similar to the ‘History of Trees in Portland‘ video they produced in the 1990s, this video provides context for the three-year partnership between Friends of Trees, Metro and ODOT, which is planting thousands of trees along the I-205 Multi-Use Path.
This video was [...]
The Neighborhood Trees (NT) program plants large street and yard trees in various Portland-metro urban areas. With proper care, large stock trees have a great survivability rate and are able to quickly impact their environmental.
While trucks are usually required for NT plantings, this Jan. 23 planting in Southeast Portland shows how three Plant by Bike [...]
Tags: I-205, Metro, ODOT, planting, slideshow, street trees, volunteering, yard trees
This year, love each other and the Earth by giving Friends of Trees Gift Trees for Valentine’s Day.
For a donation of just $35, Friends of Trees will plant a young native tree in honor of a loved one and send a gift acknowledgement card in their name. It’s a great cause and [...]
Tags: Audubon, Collins Sanctuary, Gift Trees, I-205, Metro
A new report made available today cites “strong evidence” that exposure to traffic can produce new cases of asthma and heart ailments, reports The New York Times.
An excerpt from the story:
Exhaust from cars and trucks exacerbates asthma in children and may cause new cases as well as other respiratory illnesses and heart problems resulting in [...]
About 75 volunteers and community members gathered Saturday to plant over 160 trees with Friends of Trees via its Green Space Initiative (GSI) program.
The ceremonial planting—special dignitary shovels included—was the official start of a three-year project to plant along the I-205 Multi-Use Path.
Special representatives from the Oregon Department of Transportation, Metro and other elected officials [...]
Tags: canopy, I-205, Metro, ODOT, planting, runoff, shade, Verde, video
The Environmental Protection Agency moved today to enact stricter laws against smog-creating pollutants, reports The New York Times.
A snippet:
The agency is also proposing a secondary standard that will vary with the seasons to protect plants and trees from repeated exposure.
The agency estimated that complying with the new standard will cost $19 billion to $90 billion [...]
Friends of Trees has 12 plantings in the month of January, five for Green Space Initiative and seven for Neighborhood Trees. Search our online calendar for one near you and help us get those trees in the ground! Walk-in volunteers are always welcome but remember to dress appropriately. Gloves, tools, and coffee and donuts are [...]
Friends of Trees is only a few weeks into its I-205 multi-use path partnership with Metro and ODOT, and already there is an uproar.
News posts on the bike forum BikePortland.org announcing the plantings and later a follow-up have garnered over 60 comments so far, some of the confrontational sort. More comments from the bike community [...]
Friends of Trees and its Green Space Initiative (GSI) program officially started planting along the I-205 multi-use path Saturday.
Thirty volunteers arrived at SE 94th and Yamhill to plant 100 trees the week before Christmas, successfully kicking off this three-year partnership between Friends of Trees, Metro and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). The larger plantings [...]
A biking geophysicist at Western Washington University is studying the effect street trees have on reducing the amount of harmful particles in the air, reports The Olympian.
In an interview with Friends of Trees, Bernard Housen described how he has found urban street trees to be good monitors of airborne pollutants, because of their ability to [...]
Tags: carbon, I-205, Metro, ODOT, street trees
It has been four months since Metro unanimously approved the largest capital grant in its history to plant more than 2,000 trees along the I-205 multi-use path.
Now the planting sites are secure.
This three-year partnership, which involves Friends of Trees, Metro and ODOT, is worth over $400,000 and stems from the 2006 voter-approved measure 26-80, also [...]
By Melissa Barber
Friends of Trees is proud to partner with the Audubon Society of Portland and Metro to help restore the Collins Sanctuary in Forest Park. Our restoration effort in this unique and beautiful area in Portland’s West Hills are made possible by generous donations through our Gift Trees program.
The Collins Sanctuary, a legacy of [...]
Tags: Audubon, Collins Sanctuary, Gift Trees, Metro
Partners in Community Forestry 2009
National Arbor Day Foundation Conference: Nov. 9
Providing insight on high-level contract negotiations, two architects of the I-205 tree planting project gave their creation story for a packed session at the National Arbor Day Conference.
Scott Fogarty, executive director of Friends of Trees, described the target corridor as an “environmental justice problem” because [...]
Partners in Community Forestry 2009
National Arbor Day Foundation Conference: Nov. 9
Calling Portland “an island in a sea of federal land,” Metro Regional Council President David Bragdon opened the conference with his introduction of Intertwine and stressing partnerships like the one with Friends of Trees.
“The public wants to enjoy the outdoors without regard to who owns [...]
Tags: Arbor Day '09, I-205, Metro, ODOT
Partners in Community Forestry 2009
National Arbor Day Conference: Nov. 8
What once was a grassy slope opposite I-205 is now home to 30 trees, courtesy of a pre-conference service project put on by Friends of Trees and Alliance for Community Trees (ACT).
Early arrivers for the 2009 Partners in Community Forestry conference took an eco-shuttle from their [...]
Tags: ACT, Arbor Day '09, Douglas Fir, I-205, maple, Metro, oak, ODOT, pine
In an email to citizens today, Mayor Sam Adams unveiled Portland’s pending Climate Action Plan, which intends to increase urban forest canopy from 26 percent to 33 percent by 2030.
Other urban forestry goals outlined in the 70-page document include: protection against tree loss; tree canopy retention efforts; and the planting of large-species trees.
Also outlined is [...]
Tags: canopy, Mayor Adams, Metro, ODOT
–Metro announced it bought 20 acres of the upper Rock Creek Headwaters, according to The Oregonian.
The headwaters, which border Forest Park to the west, is part of the subwatershed boundary for the Tualatin River.
–The City of Vancouver announced this week it is seeking applicants for a volunteer position on its Urban Forestry Commission.
The seven-member advisory [...]
Tags: books, education, Forest Park, Metro, nursery, Vancouver
Urban forest, green spaces, urban canopy, green oasis … they’re all synonymous with the Portland lifestyle. Who plants thousands of trees every year to maintain and enhance the metro-area’s canopy?
Friends of Trees’ volunteers.
Last Friday, Friends of Trees created an urban park in a downtown parking spot to join the global outreach mechanism Park (ing) Day. [...]
Tags: Metro, oak, volunteering
It’s official, Friends of Trees is coming to I-205!
With their unanimous council vote, Metro awarded Friends of Trees the largest capital grant in its history yesterday to plant trees along the interstate, between the Columbia River and Gladstone. Partnering in the three-year, $415,436 grant is the Oregon Department of Transportation, which owns and maintains the [...]