Throwing shade ReLeaf Petaluma has only been around for three years, but in that time they have accomplished a lot—including planting 1,000 trees at Petaluma schools and parks, as well as winning grants and building relationships with the City of Petaluma and other nonprofit organizations. ReLeaf Petaluma is an independent member of California ReLeaf—a statewide network of community groups working to green cities throughout the Golden State—and they’ve received three Cal Fire-supported grants totaling $182,000. What’s more, they worked with the City of Petaluma to get a $226,000 Urban Forest Management grant, of which ReLeaf received 10% to help with tree planting. They also worked with the city and won a $20,000 Healthy Babies Initiative grant from the Healthy Babies Bright Futures Project, supported by the national Mayors Innovation Project. ReLeaf Petaluma also supported the city in its recent application for a “million-dollar grant” from the U.S. Forest Service, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. ReLeaf Petaluma Advisory Board Chair Wendy Jacobs says that winning the million-dollar grant was a real milestone achievement for both the city and ReLeaf. The new grant will support a five-year plan with several programs, including the planting of around 500 residential trees. About half of those will go into low-income residential neighborhoods that happen to be in areas known as “heat islands” due to their lack of shade trees and abundance of concrete and cement. “We will advise the residents, determine the best native species for the sites, obtain and plant [the trees] and coach the owners on how to take care of them,” Jacobs says. “That’ll start in a small way this year. It’ll be much bigger next winter. You know, we tend to do most of our planting work in the November-to-March time frame to give the trees the best start.” Jacobs says that the Inflation Reduction Act grant will help them plant around 2,000 trees total and they’ll continue planting trees in parks and move into planting in some of the open space areas that are in open spaces and, of course, definitely in the parks that will benefit from the shade and that are more inclined toward a forest ecosystem anyway.” Partners like Point Blue Conservation Science will be helping them plant another 500. That number was part of the match that was provided in order to win the million-dollar grant. “Point Blue will be planting a quarter mile of Wilson Creek just outside the town,” Jacobs says. “It’s a private ranch property. We’re really excited about that as an introduction to some of our farm and ranch properties of what they can do when they have a creek on their property to help control erosion and provide cooling and environmental benefits.” ReLeaf will also be gathering acorns, planting and caring for them. Jacobs says they have designated some wide-open areas that really could benefit from shade. in Petaluma. “We will want to be careful not to disrupt grassland ecosystems, for instance, in some of the open spaces,” she says. “But there are also many areas
Ben Anderson and Wendy Jacobs joined ReLeaf volunteers last December at Fox Hollow Park in Petaluma to plant Coast Live Oak.
“An example is next to the airport and running along that east side connector trail all the way up past Santa Rosa Junior College and up to Kenilworth Junior High,” she says. “It’s a long trail that has sort of open land on either side, where we plan to be marking it off in segments and planting acorns and servicing them with water and predator protection while they get started. So that’ll be really interesting.” Besides adding 1,000 trees to the local landscape, Jacobs says she thinks one of the biggest benefits of their work so far has been the morale of both their volunteers and
“There’s a lot of documented physical, mental and emotional health benefits of being in nature.” — Trathen Heckman, founder of Daily Acts
the people that are out enjoying the parks. “The people we meet when we’re out working are just delighted and they feel like something good is happening in their town,” she says. “The folks living near McDowell Park are particularly appreciative
because it’s gone from a park with almost no trees or some big trees that were dying to a park with 50 some trees there and another 38 in the school next door,” Jacobs says. “All together it’s really changed the feel of the area. I mean, trees really impart a sense of well-being, and they’re a signal as well that it’s an urban area that’s cared for. So, yeah, people tell us they’re happy.” Adds Jacobs: “It’s hard to forget how beautiful they are and how much they make us relax.” Jacobs believes part of the allure is the abundance of life that trees bring. “From the birds to the dragon flies and other pollinators and the tree frogs and even the mammals [feed] on the insects that drop off the trees,” Jacobs says. “They are there because we’re working with local native trees and they’re going to be
40 NorthBaybiz
February 2024
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