Friends of the Urban Forest, a San Francisco nonprofit, strives to promote a larger, healthier urban forest as part of the city’s green infrastructure through community planting, tree care, education, and advocacy. Their Green Teens Program is one way they accomplish this, and an Arboriculture Education Grant from TREE Fund bolstered program success in 2017.
Green Teens provides practical job skills training to high-risk, low- income, high school aged youth, with a focus on tree planting, sidewalk garden installation, care/maintenance, and work readiness.
In 2017, Green Teens helped bring about a dramatic productivity gain in citywide tree maintenance (structural pruning, hardware adjustment and pest and disease inspection), providing needed care to 981 young trees and planting 367 new trees – the majority of which were in priority low-income neighborhoods. In addition, participants met and worked with individuals from across the city, and they were exposed to a wide range of speakers on topics from interviewing skills to healthy eating.
Read more about this important program and discover additional TREE Fund-supported education initiatives here.