You ARE the native tree campaign!
Large numbers of community organizers are needed to make this regional, five year campaign a success.
Email plantnovanatives@gmail.com if you can help.
Businesses
Email for details plantnovanatives@gmail.com
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Display a 4” or 5" Celebrate Trees static cling sticker in your window
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Give out our 3" Celebrate Trees stickers and brochures
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Discounts for customers who bring in a receipt for a native tree or who pledge to plant one
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Support your employees to plant native trees at home
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Invite employees to attend service days in local parks to remove invasive plants
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Adopt a local park to pay for tree rescues on a large scale
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Hold a sale of native tree-related products or services
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Give out gift certificates for native trees or shrubs
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Buy bare root tree or shrub seedlings (only$3 each, but make sure you are ordering native species) or small potted ones ($15 each) in early spring and give them out to interested employees
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Set up a table to tell people about native plants and how they can save trees by becoming Tree Rescuers. We will mail you the materials (no charge).
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Hold a webinar about native trees and plants for your employees.
We will supply
campaign materials for your events.
* Tabling signs * Posters * Brochures
* Stickers * Fliers
3" stickers; 4" static cling for store windows
Faith Communities
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Sermons about trees (examples)
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Commemorative trees
Plant and preserve native trees where you live. Renters can play as big a role as homeowners in this regard.
Start a tree planting campaign in your community - Read about how others have done it and find tips for organizing here.
Become a Tree Rescuer - Join our cadre of people who are identifying trees at risk in their own communities. Read about it here.
Help parks rescue those trees. Almost all the parks are in need of volunteers.
Work with your faith community. Places of worship frequently have open areas that are crying out for trees and shrubs. Suggestions are here for how to engage your faith community.
Engage your place of employment. Find ideas here.
Help staff a table at an event - Hand out brochures and stickers. No experience necessary, just a general idea of why trees and native plants are so important. See dates and sign up here.
Help put tree tags and stickers on native plants at the 21 participating garden centers. This is a very fun job, great for anyone who loves being around plants.
Join one of the planning teams - We need people to do the actual organizing, and we also need people just to help evaluate and generate ideas.
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Publicity
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Corporations outreach
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Outreach to Spanish speaker
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Steering Committee
Approach small businesses to display our Celebrate Trees static clings in their windows and give out stickers.
Give out campaign materials. Set up a table at local farmers markets, fairs or other events. We can get you campaign materials - just let us know what you need on this page.
If you would like to make a DIY display, here are materials you can print out and mount on a trifold.
Help with social media - We need more people to join our team so we can post frequently on all our social media outlets.
Share your expertise - We need more people for our Speakers Bureau and to staff our virtual Tree Choice "Hotline."
Want to organize an event to celebrate native trees?
Everyone in the region is invited to use their creativity to organize events. Examples might include
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Tree walks. Here is how to lead a tree walk. (For the general public, you would want to make it short, snappy and fun as well as relevant to your audience. "Planting and caring for your trees" versus "Getting to know our local trees" are likely to attract very different people. Hint: most people care about themselves more than they do about nature.) Click here for helpful planning guidelines. One option is to use props. For example, for a walk for youth focused on how wildlife use trees, put stuffed animals in the trees for the kids to find, and then have them think about why that animal would be associated with that tree. For an adult walk focused on historical use of trees, put props next to the trees symbolizing the uses (jar of syrup by a maple, can of ginger ale by sassafrass, etc.) Another option would be to have participants make their own maps of trees in the area and annotate the maps with other information about the trees.
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Storytelling - traditional stories, or about trees that have meaning in your own lives
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Tree art projects, for kids or adults
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Poetry readings
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Webinars
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Labeling trees with their names (For easy-to-order arboretum-style aluminum plaques, click here. For other options, see this page for sign companies and templates.) (If using hardware to afix a sign to a tree, do not use iron, which will rust. Brass is ideal.)
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DIY signs in front of trees describing their particular benefits to wildlife and humans. Or a "Twelve Days of Christmas" tree tour.
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Create a self-guided tour in which people fill in a word from the tree label to complete a quote. Example here.
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Identify the champion trees in your community
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Create a GPS map of your community’s trees (email us if you need help)
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Collect seeds from your trees in early fall to be sent to the state nursery that grows seedlings (easy instructions here)
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Forest bathing
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Music
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Scavenger hunts. (Here is an example, and another. The trees will be labelled. Or make a bingo card, or enjoy a word search.)
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Geocaching - here is a great example.
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Fairy houses in the woods
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Photo contest
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Movie screenings
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Anything creative you can come up with!
Here are some ideas for attracting an audience.
See this page to request materials for your event.
More family-friendly resources
11"x17" laminated sign