Grass Roots Action to Plant Trees
We're
looking for volunteers to help our community coordinate and explore
opportunities with the California ReLeaf Network. California ReLeaf is
a statewide campaign to expand, enhance, and preserve urban and
community forests -- making our cities and communities more livable,
improving the global environment, and connecting people to the land and
to each other. Founded in 1989, California ReLeaf is the urban forestry
division of the Trust for Public Land-California (http://www.tpl.org/).
Urban forestry has become a rallying point for people ready to do
something positive and significant for their communities. California
ReLeaf is working to build and transform this enthusiasm into action
around the state. The programÕs three principal areas of focus are:
promoting high standards for growing, planting and caring for trees;
building alliances among citizens, businesses, and government, helping
all to understand the role they can play in greening our communities;
and supporting community-based action and environmental stewardship
through planting and caring for trees.
Network members range from well-established, nonprofit organizations
with paid staff to small groups of dedicated individuals working after
hours to improve their communities. Activities range from planting and
caring for street trees to restoring native oak habitat in open space
areas, from helping their cities develop progressive tree policies to
distributing surplus bare root fruit trees to children for backyard
planting. Whatever the size and whatever the focus, all of these groups
rely on volunteers. To date, close to 400,000 volunteers have
participated in the planting and care of more than 550,000 trees
through the efforts of network groups.
If you are interested, check out the ReLeaf Web site (http://www.tpl.org/, search for "releaf").
Funding County Parks
Several
leaders in our community are beginning a drive to put a tax measure on
the ballot to get a dedicated source of funds for County parks. As you
may already know, Parks budgets have been cut a total of 30% the past 2
years, and that means a reduction in services, reduced hours, and
potential closings. Our County has no dedicated source of tax funds for
parks, and desperately needs a way to ensure that Parks get funding
during difficult times like these.
Right now it’s
important to demonstrate to our Supervisors that there is strong public
support for moving forward with some kind of tax measure. Show your
support by downloading a copy of the petition from the Committee for
Green Foothills’ website, signing it, and sending it in. In fact, you
can encourage your friends and neighbors to sign the petition too. Read
more at <http://www.greenfoothills.org/action/05-2003_SMCParks.html>.
