community Archives - Friends of Trees

EARTH MONTH FUNDRAISERS

You can support Friends of Trees while you’re out on the town by visiting our business partners. Eat, drink, and plant trees!

Deschutes Brewery: $1 donated to Friends of Trees for every pint sold on Tuesday, 4/7; Tuesday 4/14; Wednesday 4/22 (Earth Day!); Tuesday 4/28
Burgerville, Tuesday 4/21, 9am to 10pm. Burgerville is donating 20% of proceeds from customers who present a flyer or mention Friends of Trees at all Portland Metro Area locations (except PDX): Montavilla, St. Johns, Convention Center, Hawthorne, 25 & Powell, Gresham, Centennial, Lake Oswego, West Linn, Aloha, Scholls & Allen
Carioca Bowls 10% of sales donated to Friends of Trees all day on Wednesday, 4/22 (Earth Day!).
Cafe Yumm (all locations) A percentage of sales donated to Friends of Trees all day on Wednesday, 4/22 (Earth Day!)

stay tuned for more fundraisers!

In honor of Earth Day and Arbor Day, and in celebration of all we do together to make our world greener and healthier for all, Friends of Trees is celebrating for the entire month of April–and here’s how you can join in!

It feels good to get outside, meet new people, and work together to make your neighborhood a greener place, full of trees and native plants that fight climate change, cool our homes, clean our air and water, and so much more. Come do good with us This April!

“I love spending my Saturdays getting to know new people and picking up on their good vibes! I absolutely love every Saturday that I spend planting trees.” -Hailey, volunteer.

YOU CAN BE A PART OF THIS

Our 37th planting is still going strong, and we’d love to see you at a community volunteer event! We have impactful planting and stewardship events all through April, and it’s incredible to see what happens when you get dozens of volunteers together working toward a common goal. For most, volunteering with us just means showing up on a Saturday morning with good boots and good spirits, ready to plant trees or native plants alongside friends old and new.

Check out volunteer roles here and check out our event calendar here to register for an event that’s right for you.

“It’s planting trees. How much better does it get? Giving back to the planet is all sorts of good.” -Devin, volunteer

JOIN US AT OUR ANNUAL TREE SALE

Sunday, April 19th, 10 AM- 2 PM

Friends of Trees office: 3117 NE MLK Jr BLVD

We’re offering our locally sourced, high-quality shade trees at a discounted wholesale price. Plus other fun stuff!

JOIN US ON A TREE WALK

Throughout April, we host neighborhood tree walks led by our super knowledgeable program staff. They are usually a weekday evening and last an hour or two. It’s a great way to learn and share tree facts and connect with your neighbors.

Stay tuned to this page and your inbox for a Tree Walk opportunity near you! Sign up for our email list here.

BUY MERCH THAT PLANTS TREES

Friends of Trees has a new online Merch store! We have hats, sweatshirts, and tees with a bunch of fun designs. The apparel is printed on demand and shipped when you order—it takes about two weeks to arrive. This merch plants trees, with a portion of each sale benefitting Friends of Trees.

Visit the store here.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

It also feels good to support this work, and you’ll be doing good by making a donation. Your support will help us meet our goal of meeting our April goal, closing out our 37th planting season strong. It’s been a season filled with partnerships, students, field trips, and, of course, trees. Donations from friends like you are the only reason we are able to plant so many trees, with so many volunteers, year after year—thank you for being a part of this!

DONATE TODAY

“The sense of community and happiness I get from a Saturday planting event lasts the whole week!” -Krista, volunteer

FOLLOW OUR SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDS FOR FUN CONTENT

Find us on Facebook and Instagram to see the Earth Month action throughout April and beyond!

Business Support February 18, 2026

Friends of Trees Selected for NW Natural’s Programs of Focus Partnership

Friends of Trees is excited to have been selected as one of NW Natural’s Programs of Focus. This new partnership is an extension of over a decade of support from NW Natural for Friends of Trees based on our aligned values of caring, service and environmental stewardship. NW Natural employees can often be found volunteering at Friends of Trees planting events.

“We’re proud to support Friends of Trees because they’re a partner who exemplifies what caring can look like—bringing together volunteers to plant trees that will have a long-lasting impact for our communities.”
– Sama Shagaga, community affairs at NW Natural

Programs of Focus is a special three-year collaboration. Five different community partners receive philanthropic funding, in-kind resources, and volunteer support from NW Natural. NW Natural also facilitates knowledge and resource sharing among the cohort of programs.

“NW Natural’s continued support is so important to making sure we can continue bringing people together to plant trees,” says Yashar Vasef, executive director at Friends of Trees. “And we’re excited to explore the opportunities to collaborate with the rest of the cohort.”

Other Programs in the cohort:

ABC House works to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect, supporting children as they find their voice and helping children and families heal and thrive in Linn and Benton counties.

Council for the Homeless provides community leadership, compelling advocacy, and practical solutions to prevent and end homelessness in Clark County, WA.

ReFIT – Remodeling for Independence Together empowers people with disabilities and limited income to live safely, independently, and with dignity by providing essential home modifications at no cost.

Youth Villages helps youth and families live successfully in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties.

Neighborhood Trees February 18, 2026February 20, 2026

A Place For Celebration

A unique Hillsboro staging site makes for incredible community building

If you’ve ever volunteered at a Friends of Trees planting, you can picture a typical event staging site. A parking lot filled with trucks, some pop-up tents over registration and a breakfast spread. At our Hillsboro planting last month, volunteers encountered something a little different.

They walked through a heart-shaped arch to register at the entrance of M&M Marketplace, a multinational mercado in the heart of Hillsboro’s Calle Diez neighborhood. Volunteers sipped coffee and ate pastries at one of the dining areas inside, among the 80 independent business stalls and food vendors. Since the first planting there in 2023, M&M Marketplace has become a go-to staging site for Hillsboro plantings, a partnership that Neighborhood Trees Specialist Mario Catani is grateful for.

“It’s the perfect spot in the heart of the planting area,” Mario says. “And we get to show the marketplace and how cool it is to people in Hillsboro who haven’t been there before.”

Volunteers set out to plant 40 trees throughout Calle Diez and Downtown Hillsboro, including some trees at Lincoln Street Elementary School. One of the young crew members was so excited to plant at her school! This event also marked the 300th tree that Friends of Trees has added to the Calle Diez neighborhood.

Among the volunteers was a crew of students from Centro Cultural de Washington County, which among other programs, offers a youth STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) education program. Their Climate Justice Leadership program is designed to help young people of color learn about the environment and civic engagement through the lens of climate change. Students learn about wildlife, watersheds, and native plants, as well as topics like public testimony.

In between trees, Centro students talked about their Lego robotics competition the next day. Friends of Trees had partnered with Centro on a couple projects in the past, including a planting in Forest Grove designed to address the impending impacts of Emerald Ash Borer. We heard that students are already taking those lessons home and sharing with their families what trees they should plant to replace their ash trees when the time comes.

By the time crews got back to M&M Marketplace, the market was bustling with people shopping at stalls or getting lunch at one of the many food trucks—tacos al pastor carved right from the spit, creamy horchatas, and so much more—a perfectly lively scene to get swept up into after a morning planting trees in the neighborhood.

“The best moments of the day for me were after the planting,” Mario says. “Hanging out with volunteers on a sunny day, supporting the vendors there, especially with everything going on right now. We got to have that moment to bond and celebrate the day.”

Mario hopes to continue partnering with M&M Marketplace, exploring opportunities like community outreach, bilingual tree walks and presentations, and of course, more tree planting.

Garry Diaries October 9, 2025December 16, 2025

Garry Kicks Off The Planting Season!

Dear Diary,

The 37th planting season has started, can you believe it? I know that in Oregon white oak years, I’m just a kid. I’m only 37, and I could live to be 500! So this diary isn’t a mid-life crisis, or even a quarter-life crisis. I’ve just had some awesome experiences lately and want to write about them on paper and not just in my growth rings.

My leaves may be starting to turn and my friends are winding down toward winter dormancy, but I’m getting revved up for the Friends of Trees planting season. I went to my first event of the season last week and wow, the vibes were so good.

You know me, I’m a savanna kind of tree. But that’s what made going to Jackson Bottom Wetlands such a refreshing change of pace! This 635 acre wetland is really somethin’ special. So many birds were flying overhead! Our planting season kicks off there in October before the rains come. Turns out, wetlands can be pretty dry…until they aren’t.

But no muckboots were needed as 60 volunteers rolled in on that gorgeous Saturday morning. You know those crispy mornings when you can tell that the sun is going to come up warm and burn off the mist? It was one of those! Ugh, it just feels so good. I just love fall mornings like that.

Volunteers arrived with their families or friends or even by themselves, ready to feel good by doing good. We even had Hillsboro’s Japanese Community Day volunteers bring a group of 12 for their 27th year(!) working at Jackson Bottom. This is Friends of Trees’ 12th season at Jackson Bottom, and it is so exciting to see how much impact our volunteers have had. I love the crew huddle where we get to know each other. And stretch!

Oh yeah, I mentioned feeling good a couple times already. I should probably mention that that’s our theme this year:

FEEL GOOD. DO GOOD. PLANT TREES.

Makes sense right? People plant trees and native plants for so many reasons. To get outside, to make their communities greener, to provide bugs and critters with food and homes, to fight the big bad villain that is climate change. I think everyone does it because it feels good to do good.

There’s so much going on in the world. It can be rough, even for me, an Oregon white oak that is going to live for 500 years. So it’s nice to spend a Saturday morning meeting new people and planting a buttload of trees.

So that’s what we did! We planted 600 black cottonwoods! Populus trichocarpa are dear friends of mine, and I think they are gonna LOVE it on the forested edge of this wetland. Especially after being planted by people who care about trees, about community, and who make sure to take care of each other, too.

By midmorning, there were so many flannels and fleeces piled by the trail. It warmed up, just like I knew it would, and the sun shone on so many smiling faces. I just kept thinking, enjoy each moment, get to know each tree.

The season is just getting started! I may accidentally leave this diary somewhere someone might find it. That’s okay, this isn’t a secret diary. If you’re reading this, COME PLANT TREES WITH US. IT WILL FEEL AWESOME!

Tree-mendously yours,

Garry

P.S. Sign up to volunteer already!

P.P.S. You can support these good vibes and good trees by donating!

Community October 8, 2025October 9, 2025

Feel Good. Do Good. Plant Trees.

VOLUNTEER | DONATE

Every year, thousands of volunteers come together to plant trees at a Friends of Trees event. Together, we’ve planted more than 1 million trees and native plants since 1989. Out of the millions of reasons people come out, one stands out: it feels good.

“I love spending my Saturdays getting to know new people and picking up on their good vibes! I absolutely love every Saturday that I spend planting trees.” -Hailey, volunteer.