Lessons From a Tree: Stand Tall With Your Community

Tree Trust’s mission to transform lives and landscapes is collaborative. Our work is made possible through the support of community partners, local organizations, corporate sponsors, employer partners, city municipalities, volunteers, and everyone who believes in our vision of a thriving workforce living on a healthy planet. Looking back to 2022, community collaboration brought about a lot of positive outcomes for which we are incredibly grateful. To everyone in our Tree Trust community, Thank You for standing tall with us. Here is a look back at how your support helped us plant more trees, serve more youth participants, and grow healthier communities!  

Community Forestry Highlights: Effective Collaborations 

Last year, we distributed and planted 5,937 trees and engaged 826 volunteers! 

Planting a diverse variety of disease-resistant trees to create a healthier community is one of Tree Trust’s core focuses. Collaborating with community volunteers, municipalities and corporate sponsors we successfully planted more trees all over the Twin Cities metro area. Here is what one volunteer said about her experience, “I’m very happy to do some manual labor for the environment and my community.” In addition to community planting events, our Community Forestry team delivered top-notch environmental educational opportunities to seven area school campuses through Learning with Trees™. Cedar Park Principal, Jon Garcia was thrilled to plant his first tree, a Japanese Lilac. “We’re really excited to partner with our friends and plant some trees at Cedar Park.”  

Tree Trust Career Pathways Highlights 

Last year, 300 young people joined the Tree Trust Career Pathways Community! 

Tree Trust’s Career Pathways participants contributed their skills and energy as a part of their workforce training experience. Participants joined community tree plantings at parks and cities around the metro, providing expert guidance and inspiration to organizational and community volunteers. One participant, Minh, spoke to an audience including local dignitaries of how his hands-on training cultivated a growing passion for tree care. “After the program I’m going to be interning at a landscaping company. In the future, I hope that I could be a certified arborist. This position [Branches] really awakened something inside of me.” Other youth participants beautified community green spaces across the metro area, learning teamwork as they constructed timber staircases, cleared out invasive species, and opened pathways for easy community access. Tree Trust’s  partnerships with municipalities opened the door for young people to learn the skilled trades hands-on, instilling in them the satisfaction of a job well done. The output of their summer work results in tangible improvements like our classic Tree Trust stairs. Many youth workers love to visit their completed projects with families and friends.  

“I like working at Tree Trust because it’s a great opportunity. You get to be outside in this excellent scenery. It is a good workout. It gets you out of the house and it’s just overall a very good experience.” Calvin-Summer Youth Employment Program Participant

We are Expecting Great Things to Come 

With the support of our community and our staff, we look forward to planting more trees and serving more youth this year. In 2023, we will plant 7,000 trees in public and private spaces across the Twin Cities metro area and serve 400 promising young people. We are truly better together and can’t wait to partner with you in 2023 to transform lives and landscapes as part of our community collaboration!