Volunteers : Helping hands : Tree Society Allots Funds for Planting

The Tree Society of Orange County has given five groups of volunteers a total of $3,317 to buy and plant trees.

“Even with small amounts of money, volunteer groups can improve their home or school environments and improve the greening of Orange County,” said Gloria Schlaepfer, a Tree Society spokeswoman.

In Huntington Beach, Ethel Dwyer Middle School’s Parent Teacher Student Assn. received $1,000 to plant trees for shade outside the school’s new science wing.

Cambridge Elementary School’s Parent Teacher Assn. in Orange was awarded $964 to buy pine, jacaranda and sycamore trees for the campus.

Boy Scout Troop 57 in Irvine received $583 and will use the money, leaders said, to buy native California trees. It then will plant them in the city’s Turtle Rock Nature Center.

A grant of $420 went to Hilton D. Bell Intermediate school’s Parent Teacher Assn. in Garden Grove to buy cypress trees to be planted between the athletic field and a block wall that separates the campus from nearby homes.

The Park Santiago Neighborhood Assn. of Santa Ana received $350 to buy sycamore, willow and poplar trees to be planted in the city’s Santiago Park.

Schlaepfer said that tree grants are awarded twice a year. Any nonprofit group may apply for an amount between $300 to $1,000. The money must be used to buy trees and stakes, she said, and the planting and other work must be done by volunteers.

The deadline to apply for the next tree grants is Feb. 23. Information: (714) 879-1938.