Community, Million Trees

A MILLION TREES

Friends of Trees planted our monumental millionth tree* this April!

When Richard Seidman founded Friends of Trees in 1989, he never could have imagined that we’d reach the milestone of one million trees and native plants. We were honored to have him join us at our millionth tree planting and celebration last month, and he added a true sense of history to the proceedings.

“I’m just so grateful for everybody who has participated from the beginning and over the years, so intrepidly,” Richard said in his remarks to the crowd. “It’s just a joy. Who knew something like this would happen?”

At a party that felt very true to Friends of Trees, we were joined by 200 supporters, most of them devoted volunteers who helped us get here. Lewi Longmire played music from the back of one of our pickup trucks while folks sipped Level’s new One Million Trees Pilsner and hung out among the trees in our lot. When it came time to celebrate and plant the millionth tree, there was a palpable feeling of accomplishment that everyone in attendance shared.

“How did we get here?” Yashar, our executive director asked the crowd. “Through the power of 75,000 volunteers. Our mission is to build community through tree planting, and the community part is so important. This is what makes the magic happen, and I’m feeling it today.”

The magic of trees is that planting them is just the beginning. They’ll grow and provide their benefits for decades. We’ll get to know them and care for them, just like we get to know and care for our community. At Friends of Trees, we’re hopeful that one million trees and native plants is just the beginning. Like the trees—and you all—we’ll keep showing up.

YOU CAN BE A PART OF THIS!

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Earth Month & Millionth Tree SPECIAL EVENTS

FRIENDS OF TREES ANNUAL SHADE TREE SALE

 

TREE WALKS

  • Wednesday, April 16th, 5:30 PM ~ Tree Equity Walk in NE Portland with Columbia Slough Watershed Council
  • Thursday, April 17th, 6 PM ~ Tigard Native Plant Walk
  • Monday, April 21, 4 – 5:30 PM ~ North Portland Tree Walk
  • Wednesday April 30th, 6 PM ~ Vancouver Tree Walk

 

TREE TRIVIA, with a spin

  • Monday, April 21, 6 – 7:30PM
  • Chill n Fill, 5215 N Lombard
  • Featuring urban ecology expert Dr. Vivek Shandas
  • We’ll turn the tables on Vivek during Treevia Roulette, where YOU ask the questions! Audience members will spin the wheel and get to ask Vivek a question based on wheel categories such as Trees in Hot Times, Trees & Magic, and more! Will you stump Vivek? How are Vivek’s improv skills? Come with your questions and find out!
  • No registration, open to the public, tell your friends!

About Vivek: Dr. Vivek Shandas has more than two decades of climate and environmental science experience and has published over 100 scientific publications and four books; his work has appeared in the NYTimes, The New Yorker, National Geographic, Scientific American, Times of India, Le Monde, Volkskrant , CNN and other international and national media.

 

 

SPECIAL CONTENT

 

A MILLION TREES, A MILLION STORIES

Part of our Millionth Tree season is reflecting on our rich history and the impact we’ve made together. Our millionth tree is a true milestone, and we want to honor the 999,999 trees that came before it and the thousands of volunteers that made it happen.

Check out all the stories here!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

This is an amazing opportunity to consider a special gift to Friends of Trees. Given the increasing severity of the impacts of climate change, getting started on our next million trees is more important than ever—and we need your help more than ever. Your gift to Friends of Trees will play a key role in ensuring our long term ability to grow our community forest where and when we need it most, and to make sure the community is involved in the process.

Make a donation to our Millionth Tree Campaign

THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS

Presenting Millionth Tree Partner:

Thanks to all of our Million Tree Partners!

 

              

 

 

*and native shrubs!

A healthy urban forest is not complete without natural areas filled with native plants. These green spaces provide habitat to wildlife, clean our water, and provide opportunities for people to connect with nature.

Neighborhood Trees

Trees & Bees? Yes Please!

We partnered with Vancouver Bee Project to add pollinator plants alongside new neighborhood trees.

An urban tree doesn’t exist in a vacuum. As soon as it’s planted, it interacts with the soil and air, with people and wildlife. Our neighborhoods are their own ecosystems. At a recent planting in Vancouver, Friends of Trees leaned into that idea, incorporating native plants alongside new trees to attract pollinators.

We’re in our second year of partnering with a local organization, Vancouver Bee Project, to bring pollinator plants to our communities. Last season, we shared a vision to pilot a pollinator “guild” component within a planting event. This month, we had another co-planting that added 150 pollinator plants like yarrow, wild strawberry, lupine and aster alongside new neighborhood trees in the Central-North/Fourth Plain neighborhoods. We also gave away another 150 plants for volunteers to take home.

“Partnering with Friends of Trees was a natural fit because we share the same vision of creating healthier urban ecosystems,” says Kyle of Vancouver Bee Project. “Trees and pollinator-friendly plants complement each other beautifully, enhancing biodiversity and strengthening our community’s environmental health.”

“It’s great that the trees get buddy plants,” says Adela, the Friends of Trees Neighborhood Trees Specialist in Vancouver who helped organize the partnership with Vancouver Bee Project. “Trees are part of a larger ecosystem, even in an urban environment, and so are pollinators.”

The life of an urban tree is a hard one—they are subjected to all kinds of pressure from their environment. Planting companion plants around the base of an urban tree, or creating a plant “guild,” creates the opportunity for synergetic plant relationships: Plants provide the tree with extra nutrients and trunk protection, and the tree provides plants needed shade and support. These guilds also provide high quality forage and habitat for native pollinators, who could really use our support.

“When I inspected the trees we planted last season this past summer, it was so exciting to see how these little plants took off,” Adela says. “Each tree with a guild was buzzing with bumblebees, and I even saw a butterfly or two.”

Vancouver Bee Project and Friends of Trees selected the Central-North/Fourth Plain neighborhoods to pilot this initiative. We wanted to make the social, ecological, and aesthetic benefits of these plants available to a part of the Vancouver community that experiences high health disparities and includes historically underserved communities.

“Volunteers were so excited about adding pollinator plants,” Adela says. “Neighbors in this area were so on board and happy to help. Everyone who received a tree also participated in the planting in some way.”

Vancouver Bee Project joined in at the crew leader huddle to demonstrate proper planting, and crew leaders reported that it was a positive and easy addition to the planting day.

“The event was fantastic,” Kyle says. “There was a palpable excitement among volunteers as we introduced pollinator plants alongside the trees. People loved learning about how these plants directly support local bees, butterflies, and birds.”

These plants will serve to maximize urban pollinator habitat connectivity—these little havens along our streets and in our yards help pollinators move throughout the urban landscape. Our native pollinators are increasingly threatened by human caused changes in the environment, such as climate change and habitat loss from development, so helping them out in these ways, by providing refuge and forage, can make a huge difference.

“As a kid, I only thought of bees as something that could sting me,” Adela says. “One time I sat on one! Now I recognize them as super important. Now there’s a unique joy when I find a pollinator guild buzzing with bees.”

Friends of Trees hopes to make this partnership with Vancouver Bee Project a fixture of future seasons, and to continue to think about how we can care for our pollinators throughout our programming.

“By protecting pollinators, tree lovers support the overall health and sustainability of our urban forests and community green spaces,” Kyle says.

“To expand what we can offer our communities and our ecosystem at large, and to dream up new possibilities—How exciting is that!” Adela says.

Check out all the fantastic work Vancouver Bee Project is doing! Vancouver, WA, is on its way to receiving a Bee City USA designation – learn more about that here.

Community

Building a Community Coalition

Our $12 million grant is funding community equity work in Portland, Gresham, Eugene, and Springfield

We believe everyone deserves to experience the benefits of trees in urban landscapes. Trees and green spaces keep neighborhoods cool, support pollinators and ecosystem services, and even bolster mental health and well-being. Yet despite these benefits, tree canopy cover isn’t equitably distributed across communities and geographies, dividing most cities into high- and low-canopy neighborhoods. These low-canopy neighborhoods are often home to historically disadvantaged communities, who now bear the brunt of climate impacts when extreme weather strikes.

Last year, an 11-member coalition led by Friends of Trees was awarded a $12 million Urban and Community Forestry Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This program is investing over $1 billion nationwide to help increase equitable access to nature and the benefits of urban trees for communities most impacted by climate change, pollution, and environmental hazards.

Over the course of the five-year grant, our coalition will work to empower disadvantaged, low-canopy neighborhoods to expand their tree canopy by participating in urban forest planning processes, creating culturally-relevant educational and knowledge-exchange opportunities, and hosting community planting and tree care events.

The driving theme of the grant project is coalition building. We are so excited to work closely with our 10 community partners on this project: APANO, Black Parent Initiative, City of Gresham, City of Portland, Columbia Slough Watershed Council, Connecting Canopies, Depave, POIC, Verde, and Wisdom of the Elders.

Launching a project of this size is no simple task, and the coalition has been hard at work thoughtfully creating strategies and collaboratively planning activities to make this work a reality. The partners have assembled a coordinating committee and are collectively working on a coalition charter to set the course for the project.

Engaging community members is fundamental to the success of this project, which is why the coalition includes such a diverse array of community organizations, each with their own unique connection to the people they serve. To support planning and implementing our collaborative community engagement efforts, we’ve added a Community Coordinator to the team—Sia Hanna!

“For me, community engagement is all about commitment and relationship,” Sia says. “It’s a commitment to working alongside community members in our collective efforts to improve well-being and vibrancy within and between people and the places we call home. I believe humans are part of the ecology of place. If we are not deeply tending to each, then we do a disservice to both.”

The efforts behind the scene have led to the beginning of work on the ground: Friends of Trees has already hosted four pruning events in Eugene and Springfield that, without USDA funding, would not have been possible.

Now, we move into planting season, and our coalition project is a huge part of it. This grant is helping fund our upcoming planting events in Eugene, Springfield, NE Portland, and Gresham.

You can join us for one of two volunteer planting events on Saturday, November 23rd. We have a green space planting at the gorgeous Wilkes Creek Headwaters in NE Portland, where we will plant native shrubs to enhance this important natural area.

We will also be planting trees in Gresham neighborhoods, helping to build much needed urban canopy that will shade community members. Before the planting event that Saturday afternoon, we have a Crew Leader training—you can sign up to help lead planting crews!

Check out our calendar to sign up to volunteer.

Funding for this project provided by the USDA Forest Service, Urban and Community Forestry Program. USDA and Friends of Trees are equal opportunity providers and employers.

Partnerships

Partner Spotlight: Verde

Verde is part of the 11-member coalition for our Community Forestry Grant

We recently had the chance to connect with one of our partners about the opportunities the community forestry coalition affords. After speaking with Amandeep Sohi, Community Engagement Coordinator at Verde, it’s clear that their organization is striving to make a difference in the community.

Verde serves communities by building environmental wealth through social enterprise, outreach, and advocacy. Friends of Trees and Verde have been partners long before this coalition. In recent years, Verde helped Friends of Trees lead our first Spanish-speaking tree planting event. They also assisted in gathering volunteers and training five Latinx women to become planting crew leaders.

“When we talk about environmental wealth, we’re talking about access to green spaces and people’s ability to go into nature,” Amandeep said. “Not necessarily big, destination-parks, but also pocket parks right by our homes that we can walk to. We want to connect people to those spaces and opportunities—community gardens, naturescapes, and tree planting.”

Verde is part of the 11-member coalition led by Friends of Trees that was awarded a $12 million Urban and Community Forestry Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The grant will fund community forestry work including tree planting, natural area restoration, post-planting care, community education, opportunities for direct community input and participation, and workforce training.

Amandeep also spoke to the importance of working in these particular neighborhoods. “It’s super exciting to be working in Justice40 neighborhoods. Planting trees and native shrubs really impacts peoples lives and doing it together builds community.” The Justice40 Initiative is a goal enacted by the Biden Administration to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall investments from key federal investments to disadvantaged communities.

As for the future of the coalition, Verde is excited to work with all of the partners. “Every partner touches on different communities, different aspects of green spaces. Depave is breaking up asphalt and pavement to mitigate heat island effects. Wisdom of the Elders is bringing indigenous knowledge and ways of stewarding the land back to our communities. We’re hoping to tap into our partners’ expansive communities to reach a diverse group of participants.”

climate justice

A Memorial for Lives Lost in the 2021 Heat Dome

72 trees planted for 72 lives lost in Multnomah County

On March 16th at Nadaka Nature Park in Gresham, dozens of volunteers gathered on an especially gorgeous morning, eager to plant trees. While all of our events are climate action, this one had particular significance. All of these new community trees will serve as memorial to the lives lost to the 2021 Heat Dome. The Arbor Day Foundation funded the planting of 50 yard trees in addition to the 72 memorial street trees, providing much needed shade to these neighborhoods.

“The 2021 heat dome has brought us into stark understanding of the vulnerabilities of our neighborhoods, where the shade of trees is a precious resource,” says Yashar Vasef, Executive Director for Friends of Trees.

It’s been nearly three years since that historic heat wave with temperatures as high as 119 degrees Fahrenheit, but for many the memory is still fresh. Several families who lost loved ones during the heat dome joined the volunteers at Nadaka to mark the occasion with intentionality and reflect on the purpose of the planting event. The morning was not a somber one, because, as Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson put it in her remarks, “planting a tree is a hopeful act.”

As summer approaches, and with it a chance for another heat wave, it’s important to remember both short and long-term preparedness. We must protect the trees we have, and continue to grow our canopy, especially in neighborhoods that are designated as heat islands.

“In the face of such tragedies, it is imperative that we act decisively on the things we can control,” Yashar says. “Our efforts to plant trees are a stance against the worst outcomes of climate change.”

After remarks from leaders, crews of volunteers headed out into East County neighborhoods to plant street and yard trees that will shade the community. And family members gathered to plant an American hornbeam at Nadaka Nature Park in memory of their loved ones. One family member said they plan to return to the park each year for a family barbecue and to visit and care for the memorial tree.

“Each tree we planted helps build a shield against the worst humanitarian impacts of extreme heat,” Yashar says, “and serves as a testament to our shared commitment to building a safer, more resilient community.”

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The memorial planting event was organized by Friends of Trees, Multnomah County, and the City of Gresham.