PDX: You can have a Tree Planted in Someone’s Honor or Memory

Twenty Years of Planting Trees

Friends of Trees has been empowering people in the Portland-Vancouver metro area to plant and care for city trees and green spaces for two decades now. Since 1989, thousands of Friends of Trees volunteers have planted more than 385,000 trees and native plants.

Through Friends of Trees’ Neighborhood Trees program, residents in Portland, Gresham, Beaverton and Vancouver can buy quality 8- to 12-foot tall trees at greatly discounted prices, and plant the trees with their neighbors during weekend community planting events. The low cost of the trees even includes delivery, hole-digging, planting guidance, mulch, stakes, and follow-up maintenance checks.

Thanks to many partner agencies and business sponsors, and to a five-year partnership in the city of Portland’s Grey to Green Initiative, Friends of Trees will plant nearly twice as many street and yard trees this year as it planted last year. Plans are underway to continue the exponential growth over the next three years.

Friend of Trees’ Green Space Initiative program guides volunteers at weekend work parties to restore green spaces in public parks and along public right-of-ways. A new three-year partnership with the Oregon Department of Transportation, Metro, and a growing group of partner agencies and businesses is greening the well-traveled 16.5-mile I-205 transportation corridor from the Columbia River south to Gladstone. The project involves planting thousands of trees along the Multi-Use Path and has already led to the creation of 16 new green jobs for under-served and minority communities.

Through Friends of Trees’ Gift Trees program, people everywhere can have a tree planted in someone’s honor or memory. Donations made through Gift Tree purchases support the Green Space Initiative. All Gift Trees are planted in the Collins Sanctuary in Forest Park.

The Portland-metro area’s growing treescape benefits the metro area more as the trees mature. The trees slow climate change by absorbing carbon and lowering energy use in the buildings they shade, and they also reduce air pollution by trapping pollutants and minimizing the urban heat island effect, keep pollutant-carrying runoff out of our of rivers, provide habitat for wildlife and songbirds, and draw increasing numbers of people outdoors to engage in healthy activities. Friends of Trees is pleased to have a growing number of supporters who recognize the multiple benefits that our multi-tasking trees provide.

Many thanks again.

Teri Ruch

Communcations Director

503-282-8846

www.FriendsofTrees.org