Grants of up to $100,000 will be awarded competitively to cities, other public agencies and nonprofit organizations that partner with public agencies.  Grant guidelines allow for trees to be planted in parks and public open spaces as well as in parkways along residential and commercial streets.

The application deadline has been set for May 31^st for applicants to develop comprehensive replanting programs.  Grants should be awarded this summer allowing for tree planting as early as this fall or winter.  Priority will be given to the grant proposals demonstrating the greatest need.

Applications can be downloaded from the Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District website here, or call (213) 738-2981.

Watch Cover Your Asphalt Campaign on PBS. See more from Rob on the Road.

Starting last week, homeowners across the city found notices taped to the trees outside their front doors announcing that the city’s Department of Public Works won’t be caring for the urban greenery anymore.

Read more at the SF Gate website.

Taylor Students Plant Fruit Trees

Common Vision Plants Fruit Trees

Students Get Tree-Planting Lesson

We Love Our Trees

Common Vision Comes to Chico

During the first week of December, windstorms devastated communities in the Los Angeles area. Several of our ReLeaf Network members work in these areas, so we were able to get first hand accounts of the wreckage. In total, the windstorms caused more than $40 million in damage. For more information on the cost of the storm, see this article from the L.A. Times.

Emina Darakjy from Pasadena Beautiful said, “I have lived in Pasadena for 35 years and have never seen such devastation. It is so sad to see so many trees down.” More than 1,200 trees were downed in Pasadena alone. Winds were over 100 miles per hour in some parts of the town.

“People are so upset and sad to see what has happened. It is like losing so many close friends or family members,” said Darakjy who took the pictures in this article in the days after the storm.

In honor of California Arbor Week, March 7 – 14, 2012, California ReLeaf is pleased to kick off a California Arbor Week Photo Contest.  This contest is an effort to increase awareness of and appreciation for the trees and forests in the communities where Californians live, work and play.  This contest is designed to highlight the broad diversity of tree species, settings, and landscapes throughout our state, in locations urban and rural, large and small, and on public and privately owned land.  Trees provide many benefits to our communities.  They clean our air and water, save energy, raise property values, foster neighborhood pride, provide wildlife habitat, revitalize neighborhoods, and create an inviting outdoor environment for people to play, exercise and socialize.  In addition, trees provide significant benefits related to health and nutrition, crime reduction, community beautification, neighborhood revitalization, and economic vitality.  We are looking for photographs in the following categories: My Favorite California Tree, and Trees Where I Live.

For contest rules, submission guidelines, and deadline, please click here.

“With over 80 percent of Americans living in metropolitan areas, the Forest Service is expanding our work in places like New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.  America has 100 million acres of urban forests, and through our Urban and Community Forestry program, we are providing assistance to 8,550 communities, home to more than half of our entire population.  Our goal is a continuous network of healthy forested landscapes, from remote wilderness areas to shady urban neighborhoods, parks, and greenways.

One restoration partnership for urban areas is the Urban Waters Federal Partnership.  The White House officially launched the partnership last June in Baltimore. It includes 11 different federal agencies, and it is designed to restore the health of urban watersheds, most of them at least partly forested. Seven pilot sites have been selected, and the Forest Service is taking the lead on three of them—in Baltimore, where the headwaters of the Patapsco River and the Jones Falls are in rural landscapes to the north and west; in Denver, where we are working with Denver Water to restore forested landscapes damaged by the Hayman Fire in 2002; and in northwestern Indiana, part of the greater Chicago area, where we are working through Chicago Wilderness.”

Read the complete speech here.

The Hollywood/LA Beautification Team (HBT), Koreatown Youth & Community Center (KYCC), Los Angeles Conservation Corps (LACC), Northeast Trees (NET) are co-hosting a local tree planting event to celebrate the multiple job creation and community health benefits that have been realized through projects completed by the four non-profit groups.  The projects  are funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).  The tree plantings will be conducted by students, volunteers and organizational staff.  Numerous elected officials have been invited to attend and participate.   The event will take place at the Foshay Learning Center, located at Western Ave and Exposition Blvd. on Monday December 5th at 9am.

The goals of the American Recovery and Reinvest Act were to create new jobs, save existing ones, spur economic activity, and invest in long-term growth.  Combined, these four groups received over $1.6 million in ARRA grants administered by California ReLeaf in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service.  These grants have supported more than 34,000 employment hours contributed to the LA work force by teaching green job skills to at-risk youth and cleaning the county’s air and water through the planting, care and maintenance of over 21,000 trees since April, 2010.  The Foshay Learning Center tree-planting embodies all of the goals of the ARRA and further demonstrates the need to sustain these efforts after the ARRA projects have been completed.