2021 was a banner year for TreePeople. What began as a time of uncertainty, with the pandemic moving into its second year, blossomed into a year of hope and renewal as TreePeople expanded its work into new communities and in new directions. 2021 also saw the return of the in-person volunteer events that have been at the core of TreePeople experience since its inception just shy of 50 years ago. In 2021 alone, over 5400 volunteers dedicated their time and energy to help create a greener world — restoring our wildlands and bringing life saving shade to communities across California.

When the pandemic began, TreePeople was one of the first organizations of its kind to take its programming into into the virtual space. In 2021, we leaned on that knowledge to take our eco-tours into digital realm and furthered the reach of our educational programming, streaming in to classrooms all across California. TreePeople directly engaged over 39,000 students in 20 school districts across the state on how they can take take action and protect the environment as well as engaging thousands more in environmental service projects that have a direct impact on their schools in communities.

TreePeople’s long standing work of bringing shade equity to communities throughout California as well as restoring and preserving our wildlands continued to grow in 2021. We began large scale urban planting projects in Watts, Riverside and Lynnwood, as well as continuing our work throughout South East Los Angeles and in San Fernando. In Southern California’s mountains we continued our work restoring fire scars in the Angeles National Forest as well as in the Santa Monica Mountains. In total we planted over 10,000 trees and native plants and cared for over 60,000 more, as each tree we plant is tended to after it is planted to make sure that it survives and thrives.

This work would not be possible without the dedicated work of TreePeople’s staff and volunteers, as well as the communities whom we partner with to continue the promise of resilience and green space across California. TreePeople’s just getting started as in 2022 we plan to more than double the number of trees we’re putting in the ground. To support this vital work visit www.treepeople.org/supportus/.