Eugene becomes more eco-friendly as Friends of Trees branches out. The organization — which serves all of the southern Willamette Valley but focuses primarily on Lane County — brings community members together by planting more trees in city areas.
Originally based in the Portland-metro area, FOT combined with the nonprofit Eugene Tree Foundation last fall to create the local branch. @@http://www.friendsoftrees.org/who-we-are/staff@@Organizers started the new branch after becoming inspired by what they call “the FOT effect.”
“In certain neighborhoods where they planted so much,” said FOT Director Erik Burke, “you can document a different tree canopy from FOT.”
The organization is composed of two programs — the Neighborhood Tree program and the Green Space Initiative program. The Neighborhood Tree program focuses on the beautification of neighborhoods, while the Green Space Initiative program works on watershed restoration projects. @@http://www.friendsoftrees.org/@@
The organization trains a neighborhood coordinator to help facilitate the Neighborhood Tree program.
“These people live in the neighborhood, go door-to-door and offer trees through FOT to home owners, churches or businesses,” Burke said. “And FOT asks people to pay for the trees, usually at a discounted rate — about half of value — to help pay for the organization.”
Volunteers then plant these trees throughout neighborhoods, building a sense of community and camaraderie, he said. The group planted more than 5,200 trees in Portland, Beaverton, Vancouver and Eugene between November 2011 and April 2012 as part of the program, thanks to the help of countless volunteers.
“Volunteers come from every conceivable block of life,” Burke said. “In Eugene, we have volunteers from 3 to 90 years old. This year we’ve gotten a lot of help from University students from the Sustainability Center and Outdoor Program, Service Learning Program and the Greek system.”
Jeff Lanza, who worked for the Eugene Tree Foundation, is now planting coordinator for the Eugene FOT branch. He looks forward to helping it branch out to the Eugene community. @@http://www.friendsoftrees.org/who-we-are/staff@@
“We’re just thrilled to work more with the University community,” Lanza said. “There are lots of groups and organizations on campus that are like-minded and have the same goals as we do.”
FOT hosts plantings almost every weekend and had its largest turnout on Arbor Day, with 100 trees and 125 volunteers. Members from Kappa Alpha Theta sorority volunteered for the event.
The sorority enjoyed the experience and hopes to work with FOT again because it can support a large group of volunteers, Kappa Alpha Theta member Davia McFarlane said. @@http://www.uoregon.edu/findpeople/person/Davia*McFarlane@@
Mayor Kitty Piercy, too, attended the Arbor Day tree planting to show support for the organization. @@http://kittypiercy.com/@@
“She gave a really inspiring speech,” McFarlane said. “There was also a flag that was donated and then a ceremonial tree, which one of our members helped plant with the mayor.”
The opportunity to attend went quickly, with the available spots filling up within an hour. Next time, McFarlane said, they will make more spots available.
“My favorite part was bonding over a good cause because trees are really important to our livelihood, and also, the plants and animals depend on trees,” he said. “And so it was a great experience to work together for a good cause.”
Josephine Woolington also contributed reporting to the article.