About the organization
San Franciscans rely on Friends of the Urban Forest to help them plant and maintain trees for a more beautiful and healthy city. Since 1981, FUF’s community-based tree plantings have literally transformed San Francisco’s cityscape. All told, FUF has planted nearly 40,000 trees, which represents more than 40 percent of all the city’s street trees.
FUF accomplishes this through coordinating neighborhood tree plantings. On two Saturday’s a month, FUF volunteers and organizers help bring a neighborhood together in a celebration of tree planting. Essentially, what FUF does is community development through the process of tree plantings. At any given planting, neighbors are learning more about each other (in some cases, they are learning each other’s names for the first time), children are playing together, and the local residents are collaboratively making their community a more beautiful and healthy place. And after FUF leaves at the end of the day, what’s left behind are lasting–and growing–reminders of what the community did that day: Thriving trees in front of many homes.
Description of the problem
The city of San Francisco radically cut its funding for the planting of street trees in the early 80s, and citizen volunteers stepped up and formed Friends of the Urban Forest. City funding has remained at a relatively low rate compared to other large municipalities in the country, and FUF’s citizen plantings have been a mainstay of the growth ofSan Francisco’s urban forest.
San Francisco now has approximately 99,000 street trees, but there are still 127,000 empty spaces on the city’s sidewalks where trees could be planted, and many of these are in traditionally underserved neighborhoods. This means that all the aesthetic, environmental and socio-economic benefits of a healthy urban forest are lacking in general, and are not distributed throughout the city. FUF’s goal is to double the number of trees in San Francisco, thereby filling nearly every available tree basin in the city.Many of the trees planted in San Francisco also suffer from lack of care and maintenance. The city can be a harsh environment, and trees can suffer from wind, poor or depleted soils, lack of water, vandalism and cars.
Description of the project/solution
FUF works to solve both the lack of street trees and the environmental justice problems. FUF organizes two neighborhood tree plantings a month, working with community organizers to invite residents to plant street trees. FUF coordinates concrete cutting, makes sure no underground utilities are in the way, facilitates city permitting, consults on tree species selection, and brings all the necessary tools and expertise – using mostly volunteers – to these twice-monthly neighborhood plantings.
FUF also conducts a tree care and maintenance program which both educates residents on how to care for their trees and conducts follow-up visits to prune, re-stake, check for health, and take other actions to help the newly planted trees to survive and thrive. Public education through workshops and tree tours is also provided.
FUF is focusing much of its efforts in the southeast areas of the city, in neighborhoods like Bayview Hunters Point and VisitacionValley, in order to bring more trees and the benefits of a healthy urban forest to these areas. FUF also conducts a Youth Tree Care Program, which pays nearly 40 youth per year from minority and economically depressed neighborhoods to learn the skills of neighborhood organizing, tree planting and maintenance. In this program, the youth are also taught job skills, like resume writing and interview techniques, in order to prepare them to return to their neighborhoods with skills to help them transform and grow.
