Happy Birthday to Friends of Trees Founder Richard Seidman!

Congratulations to Friends of Trees Founder Richard Seidman, who celebrates his 60th birthday today! It would be difficult to measure the legacy that Richard has left already by founding the nonprofit Friends of Trees and directing us through our earlier years. Countless people have benefited from the nearly half a million trees that FOT volunteers have planted. We are grateful for Richard’s vision in founding Friends of Trees nearly 25 years ago.

Below is the message Richard wrote for the hundreds of Friends of Trees supporters who gathered on Nov. 15, 2009 to celebrate Friends of Trees’ 20th anniversary. And linked here is a reflection about Richard, written by Former Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder earlier this month for The 2011 Blog. Also below are slides from Friends of Trees’ 20th anniversary celebration, including many from the earlier years under Richard Seidman’s leadership.

Happy Birthday, Richard. We wish you many years of happy planting and growth ahead!

Dear Friends of Friends of Trees,

I send you my regrets that I can’t be with you in person tonight, and my gratitude for being invited to speak, and my thanks to my dear friend, Barb Scharff, who graciously agreed to read these words.

I remember very clearly the moment when I first got the idea to start a tree-planting organization in Portland. I was sitting in my tiny apartment in Sellwood in November 1988, reading the Christian Science Monitor, when I came upon an article about the American Forestry Association’s Global ReLeaf Program, designed to inspire tree plantings in cities across the U.S.

I was recovering from a broken heart over a failed relationship, and I was filled with anguish about the state of the earth, and I was burnt out on working as a substitute teacher. The time was ripe to begin something new that might involve hope and a positive new direction.

The next day, I went to the Central Library (this was before the Internet), and researched other tree groups around the country. I then phoned some of them, including TreePeople in Los Angeles, Trees Atlanta, and the Friends of the Urban Forest in San Francisco, and spoke to the directors. They were all extraordinarily generous with their time and shared materials and ideas with me.

I then did some checking to see if there were any efforts like this already underway in Portland. I learned from the City Forester, Alex Wynstra, that there had been some previous volunteer tree plantings, most of which did not turn out so well, and that there were no current efforts. Alex was pretty doubtful that volunteers could plant trees successfully. (In later years, he would say, “When Old Seidman first came to me, he didn’t know anything about trees, and I have to admit I didn’t think his idea would work.”)

It’s true I didn’t know anything about trees, or much about community organizing for that matter, and I now marvel about my chutzpah and foolishness in jumping headlong into such an ambitious effort.

My motivation was to help the environment, help the city and its neighborhoods, and, selfishly, to gain some job skills for myself beyond teaching. Even if the whole thing flopped in six months, I told myself, I’ll still gain some good job experience.

I was encouraged by Andy Lipkis, the longtime director of TreePeople (even though he was only about 36 years old at the time), who told me not to worry about making mistakes, but just to plunge in and try.

I got the names of some people, including Beth Stout and Nyta Hannaford, who had attended Street Tree Commission meetings to protest the cutting of big trees on their blocks. They quickly channeled their grief over the loss of their beloved trees into positive action to help this new group plant new trees.

Originally we called ourselves “the Portland Tree Brigade” but by early 1989, after brainstorming about 200 other possible names, we changed the name to “Friends of Trees.” In addition to Beth and Nyta, Joe Carli, Dave Johnson, Terry Flanagan, Barbara Walker, Rich Holoch, and soon, Barb Scharff, were among the early champions of our fledgling group.

We began slowly and modestly. One of the very first trees we planted, at Sellwood Riverfront Park in April 1989, disappeared about a week after we planted it. I returned to the site of the tree and found it empty. I learned that it had been destroyed by vandals, and the Parks Department had removed it. At least we had the photo of planting it, I comforted myself, but it turned out that the camera had no film in it, so there was no record of this early planting.

Future plantings were more successful, however, and the organization gradually grew.

And now, it is so gratifying and amazing to me to see how Friends of Trees has matured. I am very very grateful for the incredibly dedicated efforts of all the many past and current staff and board members and volunteers and donors to keep the organization alive and thriving.

Thank you all for helping grow that tiny sapling of an idea of the Portland Tree Brigade into the sturdy, strong-rooted tree it has become. All blessings to you, to our old trees and our new trees, and to the trees to come—and to our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren who, God-willing, will grow sturdy and deep-rooted themselves, remembering us fools who devoted our time to planting and caring for trees in the midst of our strange urban modern hustling and bustling lives.

With great appreciation,

Richard Seidman

20 Years Part I – History – Before & After Trees