2013-14 Rookie Crew Leaders Dish the Dirt
By Ian Bonham
This past weekend, Friends of Trees staff and “Tree Team” volunteers came together to celebrate the completion of our 24th planting season!
In just six short months, thousands of volunteers have planted over 3,500 street and yard trees in the Neighborhood Trees program, and more than 36,000 native trees and shrubs in the Green Space Initiative program. At the helm of this effort are our trained volunteer Crew Leaders, who join us Saturday after Saturday throughout the season to lead groups of volunteers in planting trees.
We asked six rookie Crew Leaders with the most plantings under their belts to dish the dirt on what it’s like to lead volunteers on Saturday mornings. Let’s dig in!
1. What inspired you to join Friends of Trees as a Crew Leader this year?
“Friends of Trees was on my radar even before moving to Portland in September last year. I think I searched for ‘portland community trees’ and found you on the internet. Volunteering was something I identified as being really important to me in making the move up here.” – Rick Hodge
“I was a long time member of a boat crew for a Long Island bay and estuary cleanup group called SPLASH. During all that glorious time spent picking trash from the blue bays, white beaches and muddy marshes, my social circle consisted exclusively of sand fleas, horse flies and seaweed. So when I got here to the Beaver State, naturally I was feeling all lonely and depressed as you can imagine. But then I looked around and said to myself: “Self, they really have a lot of trees and rain around here.” So I reasoned, where there are trees there is soil, and where there is soil and rain there is mud, and where there is mud there are lots of nematodes. So as you can see, it really was a no brainer for me to exchange the blue ocean, sand fleas, horse flies and seaweed, for the green forests, greenway streets, rain, mud, and nematodes.” – Pat Rowen
2. Aside from the breakfast treats (or maybe including them!), what is your favorite part of leading volunteers at plantings?
“Helping other people experience that unique connection to nature that’s created through planting trees.” – Chris Canida
“My favorite part is being outside, rain or shine, and being with people who may only be there because they need a class credit, or because they just needed to get out of the house, or because their parents made them do it… and seeing them near the end of the day with big smiles on their faces. Nothing makes a person feel like they’ve accomplished something like being able to see it, and touch it.” – Matt Chapman
3. What was your favorite Crew Leader experience of the season?
“Each planting is a series of moments… whether it’s somebody seeing a lizard, or a kid planting their first tree, or people who just happened to be walking by pitching in to help. This season, I saw something that is distinctly Portland, through and through. In one of the buckets of doughnuts, there was one that… needed to be censored. If you’ve ever been to Voodoo Doughnut, you know exactly which one I mean. If you don’t, by all means, stop by and see if you can guess.” – Matt Chapman
“Just after planting a Snowberry, I looked up in time to see the Friends of Trees canopy tumbling downhill into the raging Johnson Creek. We ended up using some twine, a couple zip-ties, and a trail breaker to fish it out of the river.” – Chris Canida
“I was volunteering for one of Oregon’s brew festivals where I enjoyed meeting one of the brew-masters from a local brewery and his partner. [They] noticed the Friends of Trees sticker on my cell phone and said they were getting trees as part of the South Tabor neighborhood planting the following morning. I was crew leading for that planting and sure enough got to share the experience with them the next day.” – Rick Hodge
“These guys were all Eagle Scouts from various troops around the country and they were engaged in a conversation about their Eagle projects, community service, and scouting. I too am an old scout that made Eagle, and despite a twenty five year separation in our experiences we were all having a great talk and were exactly on the same page. It was really great to relive long gone good times with people I had just met, especially while everyone else was breaking a sweat.” – Mike R.
4. What advice do you have for others thinking about becoming a Crew Leader?
“To anyone thinking of becoming a crew leader, be prepared it just might become an addiction. Every summer I go through planting withdrawal.” – Chris Canida
“Practice answering questions for which you don’t know the answer. A few fancy gibberish Latin sounding names for trees spoken very quickly will impress everyone. Any further questions must be submitted in writing.” – Mike R.
“I would tell those who are thinking about becoming a crew leader to just uproot themselves and go out on a limb. Cast your leaves to the wind and go for it. FOT is all about bark and no bite, good times.” – Pat Rowen
5. Anything else you’d like to add?
“We originally did the NT Crew Leader training in November, and then somehow in the weeks after Pat signed us up for a bunch of GSI planting as regular volunteers. So we decided to do the January Crew Leader training for GSI also. Being involved in both teams is fun because we like alternatively going to wild places and different neighborhoods, learning more about both ornamental and native species, and seeing what kinds of programs are being instituted around the different municipalities and outlying counties.” – Pat Rowen
“Few things feel better than helping plant a thousand trees in the space of two hours.” – Matt Chapman
“Some things I like about FOT (in no particular order): Well organized activities that do what they say they will do with the right equipment within the stated time. Cheerful professionals who proficiently direct the activities while being respectful and inclusive and honest and nice. Staff who generously offer a variety of opportunities to be as involved as I want to be at my comfort level. All in all I believe in the work FOT does and the way FOT does it.” – Kate Ketcham
– Ian is the Volunteer & Outreach Program Specialist for Friends of Trees.