Greening of the City : Ventura County groups plant trees in violence-torn Los Angeles neighborhoods.
“I lived in Los Angeles for a year and because of the riots I can’t just walk away. They really need help,” said Deborah Green, an arborist with the city of Ventura.
A woman of prodigious energy and civic spirit, Green and a hardy band of local volunteers have launched an effort in our county to help “green” the areas of L.A. burned out last month.
“When they rebuild, it has to be better. People from this area want to help. I’m encouraging them to help with trees,” she said. “By switching streets to green it not only improves the ecosystem, it’s one thing that really helps bring people together.”
Green will be volunteering this spring and summer as a trainer of “citizen foresters” for TreePeople in L.A. They’ll be replacing trees that were damaged in the unrest as well as starting new plantings and organizing neighborhoods to follow up. The work is ongoing, not just a one-shot.
“Everybody involved in volunteering to replant there feels responsible for something that’s living. There’s pride in the entire block. And that message gets to the children because they help too,” said Green.
Another volunteer effort local folks can contact is L.A. Works. Saturdays, Sundays and weekday evenings year-round their “Planting Teams” landscape and paint youth centers, homeless shelters and other facilities in South L.A.
If you can’t join the rebuilding effort in person, you can “dedicate” a tree through TreePeople. They have a “gift of life” program by which trees are planted in the name of someone you designate and that person receives a gift certificate announcing that it’s been done in his or her name. (Father’s Day is coming up, folks.)
Not just Ventura County man and woman power is going into the effort. Ventura County trees, too, are going to help.
Moorpark tree-nurseryman John Boething--at the request of Los Angeles Beautiful, a group allied with Peter Ueberroth’s Rebuild L.A. effort--is providing 1,000 trees. In addition, Haydi Danielson, also of Boething Treeland, (“The West’s largest grower of one-gallon to 48-inch boxed trees,”) is helping coordinate other Ventura County wholesale nurserymen’s efforts to join in making such tree donations--of whatever size. She’s a board member of the California Nursery Growers Assn. and its local representative.
Another professional group, the members of the California Assn. of Nurserymen, are organizing an effort in Ventura County to aid in the rebuilding. Liz Muraoka of Fairway Gardens in Simi Valley is their bulletin secretary. “We’re doing a fund-raiser and also organizing members to provide trees,” she said.
One of the reasons that a lot of trees are going to be needed is unrelated to the damage. There were never a lot of trees there to begin with, but a lot of asphalt and concrete instead. Last year Caltrans acknowledged this and created a “Highway Mitigation Project.”
“As you might have guessed, that is government language,” said Peter Lassen of the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, who administers their tree-planting program. Currently, 100 inner-city youths are earning wages planting street trees and parks “within a mile to the left of the freeway and a mile to the right of the freeway from downtown L.A. to the harbor, the airport” and through East L.A. The Corps is accepting donations of “15-gallon or larger” trees. That’s tree code for a sapling that’s about a head high.
Just before the riots, the Corps was given the use of some inner-city acreage to store donated trees, should a lot of them become available.
“We’ll come and pick them up,” Lassen said. Every tree donated means he can use funds to pay additional young workers. Funding is currently from Caltrans out of gas taxes.
One aspect of the Corps’ program is called “Clean and Green.” This links environmentalism with drug-free living. I don’t think I need to go into a lecture about the connection between the way a neighborhood looks and the way people in it feel about it and themselves.
Instead, I’ll let TreePeople co-founder Andy Lipkis have the final word. He kindly provided me a copy of a letter he sent the President last week. Here’s an excerpt:
“Regarding the value and role of trees in rebuilding and establishing community, block by block, person by person--what is important is the people doing it, working to build a stake in remaking their city. The trees are a tool, a vehicle, they are not only an end. Simply planting trees will not help solve the problem . . . but asking the people, young and old, to dream about the city they’d like to have, and then supporting them in achieving that dream is what we are here to do. The trees are often the first visible and tangible signs that people can change things and do have an impact.”
* FYI
* Ventura County Chapter of California Assn. of Nurserymen c/o Liz Muraoka, 526-3116.
* Ventura County representative of California Nursery Growers Assn. c/o Haydi Danielson, 529-1253.
* TreePeople Citizen Forester Volunteer Coordinator or “Gift of Life” information (818) 753-4600.
* “Planting Teams” organized by L.A. Works (213) 850-5766.
* Los Angeles Conservation Corps c/o Peter Lassen (212) 749-3601.
