From “Richmond Trees.”
Richmond Trees is proud and excited to announce that we have been awarded our first $10K grant from California ReLEAF to plant street trees.

A partnership was created between Richmond Trees, the City of Richmond and Groundwork Richmond in our grant application. We are grateful to Lina Velasco, Senior City Planner, whose generosity and expertise in grant writing, wrote the grant for all of us; to Nancy Baer from Groundwork Richmond; Chris Chamberlain, Parks & Landscaping Superintendent; and Richmond Trees members Lee Micheaux and Liz Bittner all collaborated on the grant.

100 street trees will be purchased ($50-$55/tree is the wholesale cost to the city for one 15 gallon street tree now) and planted in the North & East, Iron Triangle, Coronado and Santa Fe neighborhoods.

The model of education, canvassing, planting, tree care, community building and partnership that Richmond Trees developed over the past year will be used to train volunteers in these other neighborhoods of Richmond so that we can grow the tree canopy throughout the city.

Richmond Trees will also be able to purchase a concrete saw so that the N&E residents who submitted Adopt-a-Tree applications last year and have been patiently waiting for concrete removal will be able to join us in getting their tree(s) planted. We will also be purchasing shovels, stake pounders and other planting equipment, get a more professional look to our website (www.richmondtrees.org), and write a brochure to educate residents in tree care - including those who may have forgotten to water their tree, remove weeds around the base, are using string trimmers (weed whackers) which damage the bark, or are topping/pruning their street trees.

The grant is a matching grant, so volunteer hours and city staff time will used to calculate the $10K match.

To launch the grant, Richmond Trees will host a Harvest Festival/Tree Planting event on Roosevelt & 29th on November 3, 2012 from 9-1 (approx) to plant 35+ trees. Please save the date and join us. More info to follow.