What a month!

March 10, 2012 Alameda, Irvington, Sabin & Grant Park Planting
Trees on T's (Whitney Hartzell)

What a March we’re having! Not only did we help host the first-ever Rock Creek Watershed Wide event on March 17, but our March 10 plantings set at least two records:

1) More volunteers helped us plant trees on March 10 than on any other weekend yet—550!

2) Through a special offer of free trees in outer east Portland, we planted 555 trees in the Argay, Parkrose, Parkrose Heights, Russell, Sumner and Wilkes neighborhoods. Many thanks to participating homeowners, Verde, Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services, and planting volunteers—including dozens of David Douglas and Parkrose High School students!

We also had a great time planting in the Alameda, Irvington, Sabin and Grant Park neighborhoods, as seen in the above photos taken by Whitney Hartzell. The event included live music by “Ten Spiders” and T-shirts designed by Alan Rahi and Mira Eng-Goetz. This blog post by Irvington’s neighborhood coordinator, Albert Kaufman, provides more details and photos from the day.

In addition, volunteers planted thousands of native trees and plants at Saum Creek and Valley Memorial Park at events we organized with Clean Water Services and the cities of Tualatin and Hillsboro.

Here’s what David Douglas High School ESL teacher Anne Downing wrote about Friends of Trees:

“I think you all have a secret army of tree fairies working for you at night to do all you do for the people of Portland and the Pacific Northwest. What you do for the ESL students at DD is unique and makes a strong difference in their general well being. I think this is most apparent with newcomers experiencing the first winter in Portland. The dark rainy days and confusing American life is not so discouraging when they can go and have such success at planting trees. They find out they can work together with Portlanders and make new friends. Your support of them is a big deal.”

Friends of Trees is grateful to all of the students, teachers, homeowners, volunteer leaders, planting volunteers, and partners who helped make March 10 so successful. Your help is big deal to us!

–TR