Sparks Middle School Greening is Complete!
On Saturday, February 22nd, students, parents, community members, longtime volunteers, and school administrators gathered at Sparks Middle School to plant the remaining 23 trees from TreePeople’s 55-tree plan.
Joined by the San Gabriel Valley team, members of the education department, and the Green Infrastructure team, this group put the finishing touches on the plan designed by one of Treepeople’s Designers, Edward Saloj. With direction from Principal Dr. David Nieto, whose vision for shade, color, and curb appeal, this plan materialized over the course of several months and lots of hard work preparing the site by our contractor, SLA and with the support of Stephanie Biakanja, Senior Facilities Planner at Hacienda-La Puente School District.
TreePeople walked the site to close out the construction phase of the project, and now moves into a 3-year maintenance period to ensure these trees grow into mature shade trees for decades to come. Thank you to all those that participated in this event and in the Sparks Middle School greening project!
Greening Early Education Centers
Did you know that the School Greening team doesn’t just work at K-12 sites? That’s right, we are the proud stewards of a grant to green the sites of two nursery schools/early childhood development centers.
We’re working on adding trees, natural play elements, and age appropriate features at Long Beach Day Nursery (LBDN) and Rio Hondo Community College’s Child Development Center. The plan at LBDN, which we’ve created in collaboration with Studio 111, includes more than two dozen trees and lots of native plants. At Rio Hondo’s center, which cares for children of community college students, we’ve teamed up with Terremoto Landscape Architects to create a design that uses the site’s existing topography to create natural play spaces, while adding approximately 30 trees and a rain garden for children to explore.
In the second half of 2024, TreePeople led workshops with staff and parents at these two sites, with the goal of collecting community input to shape the designs. Our goal is to start construction before the end of 2025 and complete all work before the end of March 2026. Stay tuned to track our progress!
How to Green a School
Have you ever wondered how to advocate for a green schoolyard at your school? TreePeople just launched our “How to Start a School Greening Project” guide. Learn what steps you can take to get started, browse resources that can help fund your project, and fill out the School Greening Project Inquiry form today to get in touch with us.
Wilmington Middle School
On a brisk Saturday morning in March, TreePeople’s South Los Angeles team and a Climate Fellow joined the Green Infrastructure department at Wilmington Middle School, where we worked with students, families, teachers, administrators, and community members to plant 27 trees as part of an ongoing, large-scale asphalt removal project. More than 80 volunteers attended the event. Multiple student groups, including the school’s green team, participated in the planting day as well. We look forward to working with students on the second planting day, which will bring more trees and plants to the campus.
96th Street Elementary Update
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) recently shared some amazing aerial images of a project from the Transformative Climate Communities program in Watts, a sweeping project that helped green and bring much-needed shade to 96th Street, Weigand, 112th Street, and Compton Elementary in 2023. TreePeople partnered with LAUSD to transform these schoolyards by removing asphalt and planting trees. These new images–courtesy of LAUSD, show how the final product looks today—a vibrant schoolyard with lots of new trees.
More updates coming this summer…
What will the school greening team be up to this summer? Well, you have to come back next quarter and read about our work, but here’s a hint: Construction is coming to schools in the southland!