A MILLION TREES, A MILLION STORIES

This season at Friends of Trees, we will plant our millionth tree. Our millionth tree, like all of the trees and native shrubs we’ve planted, will be planted with the power of community volunteers.

We hope you’ll join us in celebrating! You can volunteer at one of our many planting events, join us at a special millionth tree event (tree walks, tree talks, treevia, and more!), make a donation in honor of our millionth tree, or tell your own story about what trees mean to you.

Come for the Trees, Stay for the People

Reflections from the Friends of Trees Staff

Hi there, I’m Colin. I’m the person who puts together these stories. You might have met me at an event, or seen a glimpse of me in a social media post, but for the most part I like to step back and let other people shine. As the Friends of Trees communications manager, I see it as my job to amplify other people’s voices.

My favorite thing about that is getting to talk to people. Everyone has a story. I asked our staff to contribute their own stories, to reflect on their time at Friends of Trees, to show our audience a little more of some of the people who have helped us reach the milestone of a million trees and native plants.

Why am I stepping (briefly) out from behind the curtain? Well, I figured it’s only fair, I can’t just write an anonymous little intro for this one. I also wanted to tell you all, as Colin, that our staff is a truly special group of people. The passion you see is not a performance—they truly, deeply care about bringing people together to make their community a better place. And for all the staff members you meet out in the world, there are more behind the scenes who care just as much.

Talking to my teammates for this project has been one of the highlights of my own time at Friends of Trees and I’m so excited to share their inspiring words with you.  Find all the wisdom, nostalgia, humor, and more here.

How To Do The Tree Dance

Volunteer crew leader Shay Snyder knows that climate action should be fun and inclusive.

When Shay’s crew finishes planting a tree, they encourage the whole crew to do a tree dance in celebration.

“The tree dance? I’m obsessed with it,” they say. “One thing I’ve learned from teaching adults is that they don’t have many chances to feel like a kid. And we’re playing in the dirt, we can feel like a kid.”

Shay teaches college success at Portland State University and believes their classroom management skills help them be a confident and engaging crew leader at Friends of Trees neighborhood tree plantings. They strive to achieve the balance of creating a fun atmosphere and accomplishing something meaningful. Doing something tangible was what drew Shay to Friends of Trees in 2021.

“I was feeling really stressed about climate change…Why did I say that in the past tense? I am really stressed about climate change. But it feels better to do something about it.”

Shay doesn’t think they ever planted a tree before volunteering with Friends of Trees, but didn’t let that hold them back.

“I’m definitely not a tree expert. But just because I’m not a botanist or a biologist doesn’t mean I can’t contribute. I just learned how to plant a tree. Almost anyone can dig in the dirt.”

Friends of Trees strives to create inclusive planting events. Anyone can come, regardless of their background or experience. Shay loves that planting events bring together lots of people who care about trees.

“You get to meet people you’re unlikely to meet otherwise,” they say. “There’s something so special about a group of people spending four hours together and accomplishing something. And maybe you never see them again, and that’s okay.” For Shay, those connections are powerful, and a model for climate action that also bridges divides between people.

Read more of Shay’s story here. Oh yeah, and you want to know how to do a Tree Dance? Just plant a tree. And dance. Together.

Every Muddy Day Is Worth It

Carolyn’s commitment to crew leading is inspired by a sense of community and fun

Carolyn is the type of Crew Leader who brings cookies to planting events on her own birthday. She has a keen sense of the big difference that small actions can make, and even more simply, believes in the importance of fun.

“It’s so much fun,” she says of crew leading. “Why would I want to do anything else?”

She learned about Friends of Trees in 2019, quickly became a Crew Leader and volunteers as often as she can, racking up almost 400 volunteer hours at dozens of events in the years since.

“It’s too easy to become isolated in this world,” she says. “I volunteer every weekend if I can. It’s the best way to stay active.”

Carolyn especially loves leading crews at Green Space plantings, enhancing natural areas in urban parks. She loves seeing the plants grow from year to year. And because she is so active, she gets to meet people, then remeet people.

“You start each event with: we don’t even know each other, but we are a community,” she says. “And it’s so exciting when you see people come back for another event. It makes me want to weep!”

After a planting event, she goes home, washes her muddy clothes, and enjoys the satisfaction of what she and her crew accomplished. She sees it as her role as a Crew Leader to make sure her crew feels that same satisfaction, that they’ll later feel the pull to revisit what they planted to see how it’s grown. Carolyn sees the long term impact, the growth of both trees and community, and she knows it all starts with people simply showing up.

“Just the fact that people come,” she says, “makes every muddy day worth it.”

When asked what she would say to someone considering becoming a Crew Leader, she had a simple response: “Do it. It is just so fun.”

Read more of Carolyn’s story here.

Heritage Trees Have To Start Somewhere

Since he was a teenager, Reggie’s deep involvement with Friends of Trees has taken many forms.

Reggie’s tree planting has always been motivated by a sense of justice. When he was a teen, a neighbor convinced one of his parents to remove mature trees in their yard, leaving it barren and exposed.

“It was traumatic to walk up to the house one day and see a crane with a crowd of neighbors watching these beautiful trees be dismantled,” Reggie says. “They had provided a lot of good.”

A couple years later in 2008, Reggie volunteered for his first Friends of Trees planting event at Taliesen Park in Beaverton after seeing a posting in the newspaper. It was an Arbor Day planting event, and at the end of it, Reggie was given a 1-gallon Douglas fir to take home with him and plant where he pleased.

“That small free conifer really changed things for me. I realized, I can actually plant this at home in the yard where the trees had been. And now I know how.”

After that, Reggie volunteered at Friends of Trees planting events in Beaverton whenever he could. When he went to Eugene for college, he started volunteering with the Eugene Branch. At his first event in Eugene in 2012, he remembers planting a blue oak—a species native to California that will likely do well in Oregon as the climate warms—the first ever blue oak as a street tree in Eugene.

“It was a historic moment,” Reggie says. “Where do ‘heritage trees’ start? They have to start somewhere.”

During his junior year of college, Reggie became a Crew Leader and went to even more planting events. His senior year, he interned with Friends of Trees in Eugene. His first job out of college, back in the Portland area, was as a Friends of Trees outreach assistant, going door to door to encourage people to sign up to have trees planted at their homes.

He still participates in every Beaverton event that he can. Read more of his Friends of Trees story here.

“All things tree-related, Reggie’s the guy,” says Mario Catani, the Friends of Trees Neighborhood Trees Specialist for Washington County.” Personally, I am super inspired by him.”

Nature as a refuge and a career path for Black youth

“I know the healing properties of nature and I’ve seen kids not benefit from that, not have access to that.”

When Jason was growing up in the suburbs of Portland, nature was his refuge.

“Growing up Black in the ‘80s, the suburbs were really racist,” Jason says. “I was harassed by police all the time. Teachers discounted me. We had a wooded area in our backyard, and the West Hills were still undeveloped. I would go outside to find peace and healing.”

This is a lesson that Jason Stroman has carried with him into his work at the Blueprint Foundation, which he helped found in 2015 to address large disparities in high school retention and graduation rates for Black students in Portland’s Public high schools. What began as a mentorship program has evolved to include a workforce training program, giving students experience and exposure to career paths in the environmental field.

After Blueprint was founded, they were looking for partners that made sense and could provide hands-on learning opportunities for the kids.

“I noticed lots of Friends of Trees activity in North and Northeast Portland. It seemed like a perfect fit because the students could do work right where they live.”

The community engagement model is another crucial piece for Blueprint’s partnership with Friends of Trees.

“A planting event might be the only time our students meet their neighbors. It creates community connections that wouldn’t happen organically.”

A favorite memory of Jason’s is a planting event in the King/Albina neighborhoods, which are historically Black but have since been gentrified.

“There are still elders who live there, but fewer young people,” Jason says. Blueprint had about a dozen students in the neighborhood planting trees. An elderly Black man stopped his car to ask what they were doing.

“He hadn’t seen such a large group of young Black people in his neighborhood in a long time. He told us it gave him hope, not just for the kids, but for the community.”

Jason is also a Friends of Trees board member! Read more of his story here.

GROWING OPPORTUNITY

“It wasn’t only a big step for me. It was a change in mentality.”

Adrián moved from Mexico City to Portland with his family and attended Portland Community College. In 2021, he got an internship with Friends of Trees through Project Zero, PGE’s social impact initiative committed to engaging the next generation in climate science learning, clean energy solutions and jobs in the green economy.

Through his internship, Adrián learned to plant and care for trees and green spaces, while also connecting with the community and charting a new career path.

“Friends of Trees is not all about planting trees. The other 50% is building community.”

For Adrián, building community is also about fighting climate change and fostering climate justice through planting trees in communities that have been historically underserved and have far fewer trees.

Watch the video below to learn about his journey and plans for the future.

FOR AYAN

“When I think of trees, I think of resilience.”

Mohamed and Farah moved from Somalia to Portland in 1995, where they raised their six children. In 2014, their daughter Ayan, a freshman at Pacific University, tragically passed away in a car accident. Mohamed and Farah, wanting to do something as a family to commemorate Ayan, joined Friends of Trees to plant trees in her memory.

“It was bringing us together as a family in one place for a cause,” Mohamed says. “That was really healing for us as a family.”

Attending planting events became a beloved family tradition, and they went on to plant hundreds of native trees and shrubs together.

“Every tree that we plant, I feel like it’s for her,” Farah says. “And I think about all the benefits that all these trees will produce an I feel like that is a continuous charity that keeps giving. That gives me a way to share her with the whole world.”

Watch the video below to hear their story.

A Million Trees, A Million Stories is brought to you by our Presenting Partner, Portland General Electric.