Good citizens take root
“Look, Mom! A worm!” squealed Alana Billik, 7, as her slender fingers plucked the wriggling creature from the earth.
Her mother pointed to the hollow they’d dug in a corner of Venice’s Glen Alla Park, instructing that the earthworm’s tunneling would aerate the soil and ensure that the tree they were planting would grow tall and strong. The girl lovingly deposited the worm in the hole and then just as lovingly assisted her parents and 4-year-old brother, Jeremy, in cradling a fledgling African tulip tree that they christened Kiwi into the ground beside it.
The young family had joined more than 50 other parents, kids, teens and random do-gooders one recent Sunday morning to plant 60 trees as part of TreePeople’s ongoing citizen forestry program. Nearly every weekend, the veteran environmental organization, the driving force behind thousands of new trees all over Los Angeles, sponsors communal plantings in parks, schools and even along the concrete sidewalks of the city’s traffic-choked streets. Open to all, these tree parties license everyone from senior citizens to toddlers -- TreePeople supplies miniature shovels -- to muck about in the dirt, improve air quality and beautify neighborhoods. All before lunch.
“It’s critical for every age group to be involved in a hands-on way. You can’t be too young to plant a tree,” said Jim Summers, TreePeople’s forestry director. “It is about making Los Angeles greener and healthier. But it’s equally important for us to foster stronger communities across the city, to entice neighbors to bond together to build something. Often, these trees serve to introduce people from the same block to one another for the first time.”
From its lush compound above Beverly Hills, TreePeople has conducted citizen forestry training since the late 1980s. As a result, a vast concrete stretch of Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks has bloomed with leafy parkway trees, and students at dozens of schools all over town spend recess on cooler, shaded playgrounds.
TreePeople and its citizen acolytes orchestrate the delivery of the trees to the planting site, distribute the necessary tools and provide a brief horticulture demonstration for participants. Rachel Dawson, a longtime TreePeople staffer, inaugurated the festivities at Glen Alla Park with planting and safety tips, including the tricky rudiments of transporting a shovel.
“Hold it down at your side like this,” Dawson said. “And don’t ever carry it over your shoulder like the seven dwarves do.”
Next, Rabbi Debra Orenstein, who’d marshaled a band of volunteers from her Encino congregation to commemorate Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish holiday of the trees, briefly explained that her religion scheduled its Arbor New Year in the dead of winter -- months before spring’s banquet of leaves and flowers -- as a symbol of faith that the miracle is coming. After all, the Jewish Talmud counsels: “If you are planting a tree and you hear that the Messiah has arrived, you should first finish planting your tree and only then go out to see if the Messiah is there.”
The volunteers then scattered in small convivial teams to dig, plant, stake, mulch, water and ultimately confer names on the fresh flora. Even after it began to rain, most persevered with unflagging aplomb.
“It’s really important for us to do this together as a family,” Shelley Billik said as she watched her husband and two small children construct a dirt moat around their tree. “I know the importance of planting trees, but it’s vital that our kids see that value and feel what it’s like to be with other people doing the same thing and caring about nature and the world.”
“I love it,” little Alana Billik interrupted on cue, “because it brings animals together, and it gives a place for the birds to come and put up new nests.”
TreePeople trumpets the benefits derived from planting trees, which are as varied as filtering air pollution and increasing property values. The children seemed eager to chirp out their favorites.
“We need more and more trees because they give us so much,” said Daniella Wenger, 8, who planted a coast live oak (she dubbed it Ariel) with her father, James, and sister, Hannah, 4. “They give us paper and glue. They give us shade, oxygen so we can breathe, fruits and protection from the rain. It’s really fun, and it feels like you just did something for the environment and the entire world.”
“You have to impress upon them at an early age that there is more to this life than just thinking about yourself,” said Ed Silverman, who played woodsman-for-a-day with his two school-age daughters. “Here they realize that they are working for other people and for the environment. It’s the concept of giving as opposed to taking.”
Several parents, whose childhoods predated sprawl and semiconductors, said they struggle in a culture ruled by cars and conveniences to somehow endow their children with any authentic experience of nature, mud or open spaces.
“I am a person who loves to garden, but in Los Angeles we’re so disconnected from the natural world,” Nancy Weiss said as she wielded a shovel alongside her 12-year-old son. “Our food is prepackaged and precut. You can go miles on the freeway without seeing anything green besides the exit signs. And he wants a cellphone and video games and computers. All this electronic man-made stuff and it’s really hard to get children to appreciate the Earth and the air and the things that really do sustain us.”
Harold Gidish shepherded his children, Drew, 14, Courtni, 12, and Tessa, 9, to Venice as part of a school curriculum that advocates community service in addition to book study. This day marked the family’s fourth urban forestry expedition, and on the drive from their home in Calabasas, Gidish reported that his kids reminisced about the trees they’d planted in years past and pestered him to detour to those previous sites to visit their trees and to monitor their growth.
Hunched against the rain beside her scraggy new tree, the hood of her sweatshirt yanked tight across her brow, Tessa Gidish’s grin spanned the breadth of her freckled face.
“I love this because it’s a lot more fun than sitting in a classroom studying,” she said. “And it really feels great to know that we are contributing to the good of our city.”
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Tree planting
TreePeople -- To find out more about regular events: (818) 753-4600 or www.treepeople.org
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City of L.A. Bureau of Street Services -- For help planning your own tree planting event on your street: (213) 485-5675 or
www.cityofla.org/BOSS/streettree/StreetTreePolicies.htm
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L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks -- Projects in coordination with community organizations: (213) 485-6547 or
www.laparks.org/dos/forest/reforestation.htm
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L.A. Conservation Corps -- Offers resources, labor and expertise to community groups: (213) 747-1872, Ext. 308 or www.lacorps.org/treeplanting.htm
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L.A. Department of Water and Power -- Provides free shade trees to electric customers: (800) 473-3652 or www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp000744.jsp
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North East Trees -- A community tree-planting club focused on Pasadena and northeastern L.A.: (323) 441-8634 or www.northeastrees.org
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Hollywood Beautification Team -- Sponsors environmental efforts in various communities: (323) 962-2163 or www.hbteam.org.
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Olive Branches -- Helps residents build community parks and gardens: (213) 387-0075 or www.olivebranches.org.
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Steve Weinstein, the coauthor of “A Wish Can Change Your Life,” can be reached at weekend@latimes.com.
