We want to thank our entire TreePeople family for making our 2023 one to remember. It’s with your help that we were able to grow our work into new communities, expand our restoration presence in our local mountains, and bring some amazing talent back to our Coldwater Canyon Park headquarters for spectacular events. We launched new programs to bring equity and access to outdoor spaces and continue on our work of bringing green infrastructure investments to Southern California neighborhoods. We worked in schools throughout Los Angeles county to help inspire the next generation of environmental champions and brought over 12,000 students into nature so they could develop deeper connections with nature. We also planted trees. So. Many. Trees.
TreePeople built new partnerships across Southern California, starting new projects in Inglewood, Colton, El Monte, Rialto, and South Gate. Community members and TreePeople volunteers mobilized to plant 11,000 new trees across the Southland–bringing green space and cooling shade to where it is needed most. We tore out concrete and blacktop, replacing it with green spaces at schools in South Los Angeles and the Northeast San Fernando Valley, where scorching summer temperatures can be detrimental to students’ health. These trees are an investment in a greener, healthier future for all Californians.
50 years ago, TreePeople was born in our local mountains and we’re still deeply committed to that work. In the Santa Monica mountains we wrapped up a multi-year project to help restore habitat burned by the 2018 Woolsey Fire. In the Angeles National Forest we broke ground on planting thousands of oaks to build back vital oak woodlands, worked in high elevation to help build back our big cone Douglass fir forests, and continued our work in the canyons above Santa Clarita Valley to help our chaparral ecosystems heal after fire. This work would not be possible without our thousands of dedicated volunteers who joined us in the winter cold and summer heat to plant and care for these trees, ensuring their survival.
We want to thank you for your support. Whether through digging in with us and getting your hands dirty at an event, picking up a native tree or plant at our community events, or supporting us through your generous donations, you helped make all of our success possible. If you haven’t already, we hope you will consider supporting our vital work to build a climate-resilient Southern California and to help make 2024 an even more successful planting year.