Pull on Your Tree Shirt & Join Us!

Friends of Trees appreciates all of you who pulled on your tree shirts and joined us at Portland’s April 11 community budget forum.

We value our partnership with Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services through its Grey to Green Initiative. The funding for the partnership has made it possible for many of you to plant trees in your neighborhoods during the past five years. You can read about the accomplishments of Grey-to-Green tree planting in this PDF of our 2011-12 Grey-to-Green Annual Report or in this blog story.

Unfortunately, the current budget proposal would cut 50% of the funding for street trees in Portland. This would greatly reduce the number of community plantings that Friends of Trees can organize and the number of trees that city residents can plant — and benefit from — in their neighborhoods.

How can you help?

Share your story! Our City Council and Mayor need to know how much you appreciate the trees in your neighborhood and the camaraderie and community spirit that Friends of Trees’ plantings inspire. You can do this in two ways:

  • First, please consider attending an upcoming community budget forum. If you have a Friends of Trees shirt, please wear it to show solidarity with the others there who care about our city trees.
  • If you can’t attend a hearing, or even if you can, please email City Council and the Director of the Bureau of Environmental Services, Dean Marriott. You can copy and paste this short message into your emails, or write a more personal message about why Friends of Trees is important to you: “We appreciate our city trees. Please restore full funding to Portland’s Grey to Green Initiative. Every home deserves a tree!

These are the email addresses for our Mayor, City Council Members, and the Director of BES:

• Mayor Charlie Hales – [email protected]

• Commissioner Nick Fish – [email protected]

• Commissioner Steve Novick – [email protected]

• Commissioner Amanda Fritz – [email protected]

• Commissioner Dan Saltzman – [email protected]

• BES Director Dean Marriott – [email protected]

St. Johns Parade 2012
FOT Neighborhood Coordinators in their Tree Team t-shirts at the St. Johns Parade (Matt Krueger)

Friends of Trees would appreciate knowing the actions that our supporters have taken or plan to take. Please take a moment to add your name to our Restore Friends of Trees Funding form.

Questions? Please don’t hesitate to call Brighton West at 503-467-2519 or write him at [email protected].

All of us at Friends of Trees appreciate your taking the time to let our city leaders know that you value our city’s trees. Your voice can make it possible for us to work with Portland residents to continue improving our city by planting trees, neighborhood by neighborhood!