Save our Trees to the Sea

For the first time in twelve years Tree Musketeers hosted an Earth Day event! We had quite a good turn out of 166 volunteers for our Community Cleanup and, with the leadership of trained Youth Planting Supervisors, all teams hit the ground running. They providing tree care to the eastern half of Trees to the Sea, conducting litter abatement and invasive species removal.

After a long battle with the city Tree Musketeers planted Trees to the Sea between 2005 and 2008 during four consecutive Arbor Days. Now that funding for the area has all but died up and the city is no longer providing water to the 1.3 mile long stretch of trees it is up to our volunteers to keep this green pollution barriar going and growing strong! After our 3rd Annual Make a Difference Day was such a success in October 2015, Lily Craig, our long-time friend at Chevron, suggested that we do a duplicate event in six months. Turns out the timing was perfect for an Earth Day event and so our Youth Managers began planning.

Overall the event was quite a success and the Youth Managers are looking forward to doing it again next year!

What's next for Trees to the Sea?

Tree Musketeers has plans in the works to train a Tree Pruning Team! Unlike planting, watering, mulching, and removing invasive species, all part of our regularly scheduled volunteer events and fun for the whole family, tree pruning requires skill and should be taught by a qualified professional. Proper pruning is essential to improving the health and prolonging the life of a tree and its neighbors. Without propper pruning a tree might become too tall and interfere with power lines, or might remain short and not provide the shade you had intended when you planted it. A tree could also have failing limbs or fall over completely, damaging property or simply die in place. This Tree Pruning Team would be a group of hand-picked individuals who are trained on pruning specifially, in addition to regular tree care, in order to help with the more specialized work. The teams will be trained along Trees to the Sea and will help at all future events where pruning is part of the activities to ensure these junvenile trees reach full maturity.

Interested in learning to prune trees or just want to give us a hand at future tree care events? Check out our volunteer calendar and then get in contact with Charming Yu, our Volunteer Manager, to sign up!

Links:

• Volunteer Calendar

During this year’s Arbor Day Celebration the Trees to the Sea got a healthy dose of care with the removal of litter and invasive species from the median they call home. Over 300 volunteers joined the cleanup effort along Imperial Highway on March 5^th, 2016 to show their support for environmental sustainability and the South Bay community including volunteer groups from Chevron, Alcoa, Kohl's and other local businesses.

We were also helped out a great deal by 1-800-Got-Junk that volunteered to pick up two truckloads of green waste, recyclables and trash.

Do you remember what Trees to the Sea looked like before there were any trees? Talk a look at the 'before' shot from our 2007 Arbor Day Celebration where we planted dozens of trees along a bare stretch of dirt. Now those trees are happy and healthy, breaking up the heat island effect, preventing erosion and cleaning storm water run-off. Check out our 'after' shots! And remember, your donations helped make this effort possible! 

What is coming up for Trees to the Sea? We are doing a cleanup of Trees to the Sea east of Main Street for Earth Day coming up on April 23^rd. Stay tuned!