Parading for Plant It Portland!
Friends of Trees neighborhood coordinators and staff had a great time at the St. Johns Parade this month, where they featured the Plant It Portland! campaign. Friends of Trees even received an honorable mention for participating in the parade.
“It was the first parade of the season and it rocked!” said Friends of Trees Neighborhood Trees Manager Whitney Dorer.
There’s more to come. On June 4 and 11, Portland General Electric will feature Friends of Trees’ Plant It Portland! campaign for the utility company’s Rose Festival Starlight and Grand Floral parade floats. The Rose Festival marks the start of PGE’s lead sponsorship of the Plant It Portland! campaign, whose goal is to plant 16,000 street trees in East Portland neighborhoods.
The 20-foot-long float, called “Right Tree, Right Place, Right On,” will feature planting events in both the Neighborhood Trees and Green Space Initiative programs.
Riding on the Rose Festival floats will be Friends of Trees mascot Garry Oak, longtime Friends of Trees staff member Mary Harrell, and volunteers Conan Harmon-Walker, Wayne Lei, Leah Haykin, and Dianna Shervey. Volunteers, including board members and bicycling crews, will walk and ride bikes alongside the floats.
Conan Harmon-Walker received the 2011 Volunteer of the Year Award. He has planted about 18,000 trees and shrubs to date, and his goal is to plant 25,000. Wayne Lei received the 2009 Individual Leadership Award from Friends of Trees for his longtime support for Friends of Trees beginning in 1996, when he encouraged PGE to be lead sponsor of our five-year Seed the Future campaign.
Arborist Dianna Shervey is a member of Portland’s Urban Forestry Commission and a crew leader. And Grant High School student Leah Haykin received honorable mention as 2011 Neighborhood Trees Rookie of the Year.
Mary Harrell has been Friends of Trees’ office manager since 1995, and has seen Friends of Trees grow from a staff of four to a staff of 20.
“We plant trees in communities,” she explains, “And we change the look of those communities, and the health of those communities. The trees we plant may be small, but they grow up and make a big difference.”
–TR