Category: FOT Events
Tree walks and more to celebrate planting season
CELEBRATING TREES
More than 3,000 trees + native shrubs planted so far!
In celebration of our 33rd season of planting trees together, we are hosting a month-long virtual celebration on our social media channels featuring LIVE tree walks, tree talks, and more. This is our way of bringing planting day to folks who can’t get out there; sharing some tree identification and fun facts about trees; and engaging with some of our partners who are part of our educational and climate justice programming.
A highlight so far this month is FOT deputy director Whitney Dorer walking and talking with Dr. Vivek Shandas about our Robert Wood Johnson Foundation partnership:
“Much of the eastside of Portland has far fewer trees, far fewer parks than the westside of Portland. What we’re trying to do is understand how tree planting in eastern parts of Portland has affected the quality of life for residents in this part of the city.
“This project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was an opportunity for us to evaluate how tree planting in the last 15 years has been serving residents of east Portland.”
Dr. Vivek Shandas
“Part of this project is listening to stories from community members about how they engage with green spaces, or don’t engage … where are they experiencing the inequities of our urban tree canopy?”
Whitney Dorer
Please check this schedule of events for details about this month’s tree walks/talks and how to tune in; here is a playlist of all of our October tree walk so far, and if you’re ready to come out and plant trees, here’s the volunteer event calendar.
We look forward to celebrating trees with you!
The Eugene Tree Team celebrates the start of planting season
As part of this month’s celebration of planting season Erik and Taylor take us on tree walks in some of Eugene’s neighborhoods and parks. You’ll discover that you can learn a lot about trees in downtown Eugene amongst the sidewalks and buildings; we’ve seen trees with some beautiful fall color in neighborhoods and parks; Taylor IDs a tree with “a really fun name to say” (what’s your “fun” tree name?); you’ll see some cones that look like duck bills … and more!
Here’s a playlist of our Eugene tree walks this month, take a green walk with us!
And here are a couple of highlights from the month – lots of good tree info and fall color!
Upcoming tree walks this month with the Eugene Tree Team:
October 26 ~ NOON ~ LIVE tree walk in Eugene ~ Facebook-Eugene
Join Erik again, this time in the ye olde FOTE office neighborhood!
and, into November! Nov 6 ~ 10 a.m. ~ LIVE tree walk in Eugene ~ Facebook-Eugene
Join Erik for his first November tree walk as he tree talks at our NW Expressway site
Would you like a tree of your own? Create a free, no obligation account to get started!
Check out the Eugene-Springfield volunteer event calendar to plant trees with us!
Celebrate a new tree planting season!
October is a time of celebration at Friends of Trees: It’s the start of tree planting season!
In celebration of our 33rd season of planting trees together, we are hosting a month-long virtual celebration on our social media channels featuring LIVE tree walks, tree talks, and more!
Plus, you can help us keep planting trees + growing community through donating toward our $10,000 Planting Season Challenge! A generous donor will match all individual donations up to $10,000, donate here!
Please check this schedule of events regularly for additions and changes. | Live Facebook events will be immediately posted to Facebook and shared to Instagram within the hour.
Take a tree walk on your own schedule through our tree walk playlists: Portland-Metro October tree walks | Eugene-area October tree walks
We look forward to celebrating with you!
WEEK 5 ~ TREES ARE THE ANSWER
October 26
NOON ~ LIVE tree walk in Eugene ~ Facebook-Eugene
Join Erik again, this time in the ye olde FOTE office neighborhood!
October 27
9am – Noon ~ LIVE tree paddle on the Willamette River! ~ Instagram
Willamette RiverKeeper takes Tree Teamers Sam & Harrison on a paddle to Ross Island; YES, Sam and Harrison will do a tree talk!
October 30
11 a.m.~ LIVE tree walk with Rudy in Beaverton! ~ Facebook
Sam hits the road and joins Tree Teamer Rudy at one of our first Neighborhood Trees events of the season
WEEK 5 ~ CELEBRATION SIGN-OFF
October 31
NOON ~ Farewell from Whitney ~ Facebook ~ Instagram
You never know how Whitney will say farewell, tune in to find out
WEEK 1 ~ WELCOME TO PLANTING SEASON!
October 2
10 a.m. ~ WELCOME TO PLANTING SEASON! Live from the first event of the season ~ Facebook
Sam (your favorite virtual Tree Team host!) joins the entire Green Space Tree Team at our first tree planting event of the season, at beautiful Jackson Bottom Wetlands.
We invite you to Celebrate Planting Season with the Tree Team!
WEEK 2 ~ TREES ARE NEEDED EVERYWHERE: Our regional approach
October 5
NOON ~ LIVE tree walk in Eugene ~ Facebook-Eugene
Join Eugene Tree Teamer Taylor for a downtown Eugene tree walk!
October 7
NOON ~ LIVE walk + talk in Vancouver ~ Facebook
Jesse Batty, a former Tree Teamer now with Vancouver Urban Forestry, tree walks with FOT’s Whitney Dorer in Marshall Park
October 9
10 a.m. ~ PLANTING DAY LIVE! It’s another natural area restoration event in Washington County ~ Facebook
Tree Teamer and tree walker-talker extraordinaire Harrison takes us on a little walk at our Jurgens Park site in Tualatin.
We’ll also say hello! to our pals from the City of Tualatin (longtime partners!)
October 12
NOON ~ LIVE tree walk in Eugene ~ Facebook-Eugene
The Eugene Tree Team takes us on a tree walk in the Bethel neighborhood’s Mangan Park
October 14
NOON ~ LIVE tree walk and talk: trees + equity ~ Facebook
Dr. Vivek Shandas of PSU walks + talks with Whitney in east Portland’s Bloomington Park. They’re talking about the importance of our Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project that is examining the physical and social dimensions of a tree planting program as a strategy to improve public health and mitigate climate change.
WEEK 4 ~ PLANTING TREES TOGETHER GROWS COMMUNITY
October 19
NOON ~ LIVE tree walk in Eugene ~ Facebook-Eugene
Erik Burke of FOT Eugene takes a tree walks with our new partners from Beyond Toxics
October 20
NOON ~ LIVE tree walk in historic Oregon City! ~ Facebook
Sam joins Tree Teamer Ian for a walk among the trees of lovely Oregon City
World Environment Day promotes ecological restoration
WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY IS JUNE 5
“World Environment Day 2021 calls for urgent action to revive our damaged ecosystems.”
Count us in! For 32 years Friends of Trees has played a critical role in ecological restoration through planting more than than 870,000 trees and native shrubs throughout western Oregon and southwest Washington. And because these trees were planted the Friends of Trees way, with thousands of volunteers, we’ve grown some community, too.
Like Madelyn, our 4th grade artist friend, we think plantings trees is a great idea to keep our world healthy.
In honor of World Environment Day Friends of Trees is hosting virtual events on our social media channels. We’ll take some tree walks, and talk with friends and partners about our work restoring ecosystems through planting trees in neighborhoods and natural areas. We’ll have some live, virtual events leading up to World Environment Day on June 5, when we’ll again share our tree walks from the week.
JOIN US!
Tune in on our social media channels to learn more about how planting trees together helps restore ecosystems.
Donate to help us keep planting trees + growing community.
Please check this schedule of events regularly for additions and changes. | Live Facebook events will be immediately posted to Facebook within the hour.
We look forward to celebrating with you!
WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY WITH THE TREE TEAM
Saturday, June 5
All events posted to all social media channels
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10:00 a.m.
World Environment Day talk, Overlook Oak Tree, North Portland
Executive Director Yashar Vasef explores the global impact of climate change, and the power of taking climate action locally
12:00 p.m.
Tree walk + talk in NE Portland’s Columbia Slough Natural Area
Green Space Program Manager Anne Marie Santos gives us a tour of one of our restoration sites, and talks about how our work helps connect people of all ages with nature
2:00 p.m.
Tree walk + talk in NE Portland’s Columbia Children’s Arboretum
Deputy Director Whitney Dorer is again joined by Dr Vivek Shandas; they’ll talk about how including equity, and young people, help connect communities to nature
LIVE EVENTS leading up to WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY
Wednesday, June 2, 3:00 p.m.
LIVE tree walk + talk in NE Portland’s Columbia Slough Natural Area ~ Facebook
Green Space Program Manager Anne Marie Santos gives us a tour of one of our restoration sites, and talks about how our work helps connect people of all ages with nature
Thursday, June 3, 3:00 p.m.
LIVE World Environment Day talk, Overlook Oak Tree, North Portland ~ Facebook
Executive Director Yashar Vasef explores the global impact of climate change, and the power of taking climate action locally
Friday, June 4, 3:00 p.m.
LIVE tree walk + talk in NE Portland’s Columbia Children’s Arboretum ~ Facebook
Deputy Director Whitney Dorer is again joined by Dr Vivek Shandas and they’ll talk about how including equity, and young people, help connect communities to nature
Earth Month was amazing!
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTNG EARTH MONTH!
Recently during a staff planning session we talked a bit about community. We use this word a lot at Friends of Trees—we plant trees + grow community—and what struck me was that though there may be variations about the meaning of community depending on who is using it and when, the common theme was, essentially, community is all of us.
YOU are part of the Friends of Trees community. Volunteers, donors, partners, tree recipients … everyone who supports and benefits from planting trees in neighborhoods and natural areas is part of this community and I sincerely thank you for being a part of this incredible organization that, in spite of a pandemic and countless challenges, planted 21,000 trees and native shrubs this season.
We asked our community to generously support Friends of Trees in honor of Earth Month, and you really did! We successfully met our $25,000 challenge, and I promise you we will put this to good work planting trees + growing community.
If you viewed any of our Earth Month events (here’s the playlist) you probably noticed that we often talk about partnerships and climate justice. Friends of Trees’ community includes partnerships with a number of truly impactful local organizations that work with underserved communities. Underserved communities experience the worst effects of climate change and our partnerships that help connect communities to the benefits of trees play an important role in achieving climate justice.
I have a final Earth Month request of you: Support our community partners. Yes, Friends of Trees will always need you, but if we are going to achieve true climate justice we all need to support Black, Indigenous or People of Color (BIPOC) organizations that are part of the movement to ensure equitable outcomes around trees and the urban canopy.
These organizations are Friends of Trees’ partners and need your support:
Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO): Uniting Asians and Pacific Islanders to achieve social justice.
The Blueprint Foundation: Uplift, educate, and support the development of black-identified youth and other communities of color.
Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center (POIC): Committed to the success of underserved youth and adults.
Wisdom of the Elders: Native American cultural sustainability, multimedia education and race reconciliation.
If you’d like to learn more about how Friends of Trees partners with these organizations visit our website here.
Thank you for joining us during Earth Month, for supporting our work and the work of our partners, and for being a part of the Friends of Trees community.