Growing young leaders and trees

We're closing on a busy spring: our Arbor Day gathered more than 300 people who planted 32 trees and cared for more than 70 existing ones. It was a glorious sunny day during which families, coworkers, students, officials, scout troops and neighbors gave back to their community.

Young people were so enthusiast about taking on a leadership role that day, that we ended up adding a day of training for Youth Planting Supervisors shortly before the event so more of them could not only volunteer but act as tree experts during the event. They did a great job showing volunteers how to correctly plant a tree or care for older ones.

"Arbor Day is a chance for volunteers to get together in an effort to help the environment by planting and caring for trees in a team atmosphere," explained Julian, one of our Youth Managers to community cable.

This probably was our most successful Arbor Day ever and key to our success was how well our Youth Managers planned and collaborated with community leaders to design and manage the event. From learning from past events, to thinking out of the box about improving the way volunteers would be dispatched, or efficiently guiding a dedicated group of Youth Planting Supervisors and Adult Partners, Tree Musketeers' Youth Managers went above and beyond.

Now that Arbor Day is behind us, we're focusing on training a new generation of young environmental leaders: our LEAD classes will resume at the beginning of July: youth from the area will learn everything there is to know about representing an organization, managing projects and delivering great speeches. If you are in the South Bay, join us!

Thank you so much for contributing to our success, your support means a lot to us and we want you to know how much we're able to achieve thanks to you! Don't hesitate to contact us if you want to learn more or get involved, we love to hear from friends!

Links:

• LEAD Classes webpage
• El Segundo TV covers Arbor Day (video)

Dear Friends,

We have kept busy in the past couple months: we held two training for Youth Planting Supervisors, that empower young people to lead tree planting events in the future. They learn urban forestry skills, how to supervise volunteers and manage such events.

One of our newly certified Supervisors is Meera who lives in El Segundo, CA our hometown. Leaving the training she said "The Tree Planting Supervisor class was truly worth my while. I learned so much about trees; little nuances that made planting them all the more beautiful! I now can plant and care for trees efficiently and effectively, skills that are essential for caring for the environment."

Meera actually ended up taking a step further by joining Tree Musketeers' Youth Management Team in December. She has already supervised a few tree care events and is enjoying her new role as a youth leader.

We hope you are as proud as we are of the young leaders like Meera who choose to take on an essential role in their community and join our the efforts to stop global warming. We couldn't do it without you and on behalf of Meera, Jasmine and the many other young environmental leaders at Tree Musketeers we want to say THANK YOU!

P.S. We are right in the middle of planning our biggest annual event: Arbor Day. If you are in the Los Angeles South Bay area, we would love to have you join us and hundreds of volunteers on March 8th. Check out the link below to learn more and register. The event is free and open to people of all ages.

Links:

• Learn more about our Youth Planting Supervisors classes
• Arbor Day Event on March 8th!