AUGUST 2025: YOUTH PRUNING PROGRAM | VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

Exploring New Neighborhoods and New Skills

Our youth pruning program provides hands-on experience to POIC and Blueprint participants

On a Wednesday morning at Alberta Park in Northeast Portland, young folks from the Blueprint Foundation and POIC (Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center) gather for a pruning event. They’ve been doing this for a few weeks, so there’s a lovely familiarity. While they wait to start, they’re chatting with their friends, exploring the park, and enjoying the cool morning air ahead of what will be a hot day.

The week before, graduates from our Adult Urban Forestry Workforce Training Program (AUF) walked through the neighborhood around Alberta Park, identifying street trees in need of pruning, and labeling those trees with a tag. This week, POIC and Blueprint students will join the AUF grads to revisit those trees, and with the guidance of a Pruning Leader or Friends of Trees staff, they’ll get out their pruners and prune those trees! This week, two AUF grads co-led a crew, a role they prepared for by attending pruning events last season.

This summer has a total of four youth pruning events in North, Northeast, and East Portland neighborhoods, with funding from Metro’s Nature in Neighborhoods program. Our youth pruning program started in 2021 and has continued to evolve, with graduates from our Adult Urban Forestry Workforce Training program serving as mentors and Pruning Leaders. All the participants are paid for their time.

“This is an awesome way for us to work with Blueprint and POIC youth in the summertime,” says EDI and Workforce Manager Rudy Roquemore. “It’s a really cool opportunity to get to know each other in a more intimate setting.”

In this intimate setting, pruning is a collaborative effort. We split into groups and head out into the neighborhood with our list of addresses. When we locate a tagged tree, we take time to look at it and talk through the potential issues.

For the students, the pleasures of pruning can be simple. Being outside, learning new skills, or just the satisfaction of making a good cut that shapes the tree for future success.

“I like the cutting part,” says Aiden from POIC. “It’s very stress relieving.

One tree down, onto the next, and after a couple quick hours and half a dozen trees, a well-earned lunch in the park. Read more here.

GET INVOLVED

Ahead of the planting season, we’re recruiting for two special volunteer roles—Canopy Callers and Crew Leaders! Don’t worry, we’ll have the planting calendar for you soon.

CANOPY CALLERS!

Would you like to help get more trees planted while talking with people interested in the same thing? Do you like learning about trees? Are you open to connecting with people on the phone (or want to get better at it)? We have a volunteer role for you—the Canopy Caller!

Canopy Callers are volunteers who call neighbors receiving trees from Friends of Trees to help them choose which trees they’d like to have planted as well as to help them with the tree ordering process.

The training for this role is held at our office on two different Wednesday evenings (choose one!): Sept 17th and Sept 24th, both 6-8:30 PM. After the training, you can join call nights at the office or remotely. We ask that you commit to four (or more!) call nights. There are 2-3 call nights each month during the planting season. Learn more and sign up here!

CREW LEADERS!

Registration is open for Fall Crew Leader Training! Our crew leaders are the folks that really make our planting events work, leading crews of planting volunteers, making sure everyone has fun and plants properly. We’re looking for folks to lead crews at neighborhood or natural area plantings, so follow the path that suits you!

Learn more and sign up here!

Chad Honl leading a planting event at our office in 2002.

Get To Know Honl Tree Care

A tree care company from a former Friends of Trees staff member!

Why is Honl Tree Care one of our favorite arborist partners? We go way back! Its founder, Chad Honl, was a Friends of Trees volunteer, then a Friends of Trees staff member managing our Neighborhood Trees program from 2000-2005. In fact, Chad was the very first ISA Certified Arborist on staff (now we have seven!).

“Friends of Trees really set me up,” Chad says. “I received so much guidance, and I’m thankful for all the volunteers that educated me.”

Chad’s contributions at Friends of Trees certainly helped us reach our 1,000,000 tree and native shrub milestone. The team was planting over 2000 trees each season while he was there. But his legacy goes beyond numbers. He also helped increase survival rates and worked with Portland Urban Forestry to expand the approved street tree list.

After his time at Friends of Trees, Chad started Honl Tree Care in 2009. Chad has a staff of nine certified arborists specializing in care and pruning. Quality tree care is so important for the health of our community forest, especially with environmental challenges like climate change and ice storms.

“Friends of Trees has created so many connections that have helped me grow my business,” Chad says. “And I could have grown more, but decided to focus on quality over quantity.”

Chad remains connected to Friends of Trees, and supported our Millionth Tree campaign as one of our partners. He loves trees, and he loves the connections people make while planting them. Read more here.

Portland Fruit Tree Project’s Harvesting Program

We want to introduce you to our awesome community partner, the Portland Fruit Tree Project. They’ve asked us to connect with you about their work promoting food justice, preventing waste, and strengthening community.

Hello! We are the Portland Fruit Tree Project (PFTP) and we care for and harvest from the trees, vines, and shrubs that feed and shade our neighborhoods.

We are currently accepting inquiries to participate in our harvesting program. That means that if your home orchard (of one tree or many) is producing more than you can use and you’d like help with harvesting and distributing, we can coordinate groups of volunteers to come out, harvest the fruit and get it to people that need it.

With dramatic cuts to food programming and already growing numbers of food insecure neighbors, we are more committed than ever to sharing the abundance all around us.

To learn more, please check out the Portland Fruit Tree Project website.

Thanks to our Millionth Tree Presenting Partner, Portland General Electric!

Thanks to all of our Millionth Tree Partners for their support!

GET A TREE | DONATE | VOLUNTEER

The #FriendsofTreesWay is planting trees—and so much more!

(503) 282-8846: Portland office

(541) 632-3683: Eugene office

friendsoftrees.org

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Learn more about how Friends of Trees greens our region + grows community through checking out other issues of Treemail here https://friendsoftrees.org/news-resources/treemail.