Earth Month 2024 brought about many opportunities to engage our volunteers, donors, and corporate sponsors with tree planting and stewardship events!
We kicked off Earth Month strong this year with two key collaborations with our partners on Randall’s Island where we held a tree planting event. We were then thrilled to join our friends at iDig2Learn, Sugi Project, Roosevelt Island NY, Lenape Center, and Big Reuse to help plant a pocket forest of native trees and plants on Roosevelt Island. Aptly named the Manhattan Healing Forest, this space was planted using the Miyawaki Method in which native trees and shrubs are planted close together in well-prepared soil, encouraging rapid growth as the plants compete for sunlight. The goal is that this tiny forest will provide habitat for urban wildlife and migratory birds while also capturing stormwater, preventing pollutant runoff, and improving air quality.
Representatives from the Lenape Center planted the first tree, and community members from across NYC volunteered to dig holes and plant over 1,000 trees and shrubs. We were treated to breathtaking views from Roosevelt Island and a nature-inspired dance performance from Jody Sperling and Time Lapse Dance. Check out the healing forest—located in Southpoint Park on Roosevelt Island—as it grows into a new part of our urban forest in the coming months and years.
During this year’s Earth Month, spring programming has been picking up here at Trees New York and our education team has been thrilled to engage K-12 students to bring awareness to our urban forest! We have been discussing the benefits and challenges NYC street trees face, learning how to identify different trees, what goes into planting trees, and who plants our trees and engages in street tree care. We went to three high schools to discuss different pathways to enter careers in the environmental field and to introduce our Young Urban Forester summer internship program to two schools that got to participate in planting a new tree!
We are so appreciative to all the educators and students who want to learn more about our urban forest and are excited for the rest of our spring programming to come!
Education continued to be a big theme throughout the month of April as we held a tree planting event at PS 354 in Queens and engaged with our partners from Forest for All NYC to train students from Green City Force who will take their new-found knowledge out on the field this summer to inspect and collect data on trees located on NYCHA properties throughout the city. These inspections will include the six NYCHA developments, including those severely impacted by Superstorm Sandy, where we are planting 330 lawn trees, and also an additional 55 street trees near the developments, and surrounding schools, parks, and playgrounds as part of our Trees for NYCHA project and partnership with the Attorney General’s office.
To wrap up Earth Month, our Citizen Pruners took us into Earth Week with a tree pruning event in Sunnyside Queens and we had the pleasure of reuniting with our corporate sponsors from Temasek and conEdison, and worked with Rakuten Advertising for the first time, hosting several stewardship events among them throughout Queens and Manhattan.
Thank you all for making this Earth Month a great success once again and for your continued support towards our shared mission to plant, preserve, and protect New York City’s urban forest!
Trees New York is committed to increasing New York City’s tree canopy through our planting and stewardship projects – so far this spring, we have planted 73 and stewarded over 250 trees with the help of 112 volunteers!
During Earth Month, we held 5 tree planting and 5 stewardship events throughout Manhattan and Queens.
Tree Planting on Randall's Island with the Randall's Island Park Alliance!
THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE GRANTORS WHO MAKE OUR PROGRAMS POSSIBLE!