The 2018-'19 planting season is almost over!
Our planting season began on Saturday, December 1, and we intend to continue planting through mid-June.
We have planted 436 trees this season (as of May 31), and we have about 20 more to plant before we close up for the summer.  (Last season our total was 230, from December 2017 to July 2018.  Several big projects this season have really boosted our efficiency.)
We already have a full queue of tree-requests, so we are no longer accepting new requests, even from the San Antonio neighborhood where we recently distributed doorhangers.  Sorry.  Please check back with us in the fall!

We have passed the 1,100-tree mark!
We planted our 1,000th tree funded by the CalFire grant on Saturday, April 6.  Since a few small crews were planting trees for homeowners around town at the same time that morning, we're not sure exactly which tree was #1,000.
And then we planted our 1,100th tree on Thursday, May 23.

We planted 57 trees in one day -- our biggest day ever!
On Saturday, February 23, we planted 57 trees at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, part of the East Bay Regional Parks District.   Together with more than 30 volunteers from Oakland and other Bay Area cities, we spent a productive morning planting, watering, and staking these trees.  Twenty-eight are coast live oaks (Oakland's namesake tree), twenty-six are Catalina ironwoods, and three are Fremont cottonwoods.  If you go to the Garretson Point Staging Area and walk/hike/bike along the trails, you will see the new trees.  Say hello and wish them well!
At three other events in March (3/02, 3/23, and 3/31), we planted 57 more trees around the park, for a total of 114.
Thanks again to the staff at East Bay Regional Parks District for coordinating this project with us.

We were the "Nonprofit of the Month" at Oaklandish!
Trees for Oakland is honored to have been named the Oaklandish Nonprofit of the Month for November 2018.
Oaklandish generously donated 10% of all sales throughout November to customers who used the special code TREESXOAK18.

Calendar of Events
Check out our calendar for opportunities to help Oakland:

Other recent news: City Council restores funding for a tree crew!

Brief Background:
Oakland City Council cut the 2009-'11 budget for the Tree Services Division (a part of Public Works) because of the recession.
Tree Services laid off half of their employees, including 2 of their 3 work crews. They stopped pruning trees and stopped planting trees.
This situation inspired the founding of a new volunteer tree-planting program that later came to be called the Sierra Club Tree Team (or SCTT), which in turn gave rise to this program (Trees for Oakland, a project of the Oakland Parks & Recreation Foundation (OPRF)).

With the recession behind us, the Oakland Urban Forestry Forum and a coalition of community groups in Oakland have urged the City Council to do these 3 things:

1. restore funding for the Tree Services Division (part of Public Works) to at least the 2007 level of 30 employees;
   
2. fund an Urban Forestry Management Plan;
   
3. establish an Urban Forestry Commission or Task Force.
   

Read the full document here (click for 2-page PDF).

As of July 1, the City Council approved the next 2-year budget, for Fiscal Years 2017-'18 and 2018-'19.
It includes a restored 5-person crew (4 tree trimmers and 1 supervisor) for tree maintenance, under the Alameda County Measure BB sales tax for transportation projects.

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