From left, Miles Watt, George Beeler, Eric Leland and Dennis Pocekay at the ReLeaf planting in December.
ReLeaf planting volunteers prepare to get their hands dirty at Fox Hollow.
increasingly vibrant with life.” That sense of well-being comes from being part of nature, she says. “It’s easy to forget that, but this is a way that we can experience nature in our daily life.” The trees in Wiseman Park are also helping with pollution in the area. The park sits near an airport and Jacobs says after the planting they realized the trees would provide a screen for the residents living there. “It will help to pick up some of that jet pollution, that air pollution,” she says. “The trees are a particularly good idea along there.” Another important environmental benefit of the trees will be cooling the area on hot summer days. They planted their first batch of trees two years ago along the front of Petaluma High School. Those trees have grown quickly and are now providing shade to the area. ReLeaf Petaluma is working with volunteers of all ages and they’ve been focusing on attracting youth. They had two youth planting days in November and December that were well attended. “They just had a ball working together,” Jacobs says of the younger volunteers. “I also see with the youth that they are really happy and upbeat about having an opportunity to do something about climate change in their own backyard. It gives them a sense of accomplishment and a sense of being able to influence something important.” Some of ReLeaf’s young interns are recruited by partner organization Petaluma People Services Center. They are from target populations with special challenges in their lives and work with volunteer mentors, an arborist and a high school physics teacher. The mentors teach them about trees and how to plant them; at the plantings they all sit and eat lunch together while a speaker gives a talk about green career opportunities. “They’re very quiet,” Jacobs says. “But when they get out with their Petaluma People Services counselors and their parents, they are teaching and lecturing about the environment and passing along the information they’ve picked up.”
She thinks it gives the young people hope. “And we give them connections that they might never have formed.” ReLeaf also partners with Daily Acts, a Petaluma nonprofit focused on land resilience. This past year they planted trees at nearby McKinley School and Daily Acts installed a school garden with a large rainwater catchment system and several hundred native plants. Into the re-wild Trathen Heckman, founder and executive director of Daily Acts, says there are many benefits to projects like this that the community gets involved with. “People really need inspiring, empowering examples and stories and so we [provide] that,” Heckman says. “When you focus on what you can influence, your influence grows.” Heckman cites the McKinley School garden and its rain harvesting as a prime example. “It’s putting [water] in tanks. It’s sinking into the earth. It’s feeding plants,” he says. “The amazing thing about plants [is] they are actually cleaning the air for us and they’re doing a ton of other things—holding water in the ground, helping sequester carbon, which cools our climate.” Heckman believes that in the midst of so many environmental crises that it’s important to focus on the positive. “Positive solutions, positive stories, connection to community, connection to nature improves our physical, mental, emotional health and well-being,” he says. “It gives us the energy to take positive action and build more inspiration, more empowerment.” Heckman wrote Take Heart, Take Action: The Transformative Power of Small Acts, Groups and Gardens and in it he offers examples of the power of action. “When you focus on connecting to nature and taking positive action, that can grow and have larger influences, from your home to your neighborhood to your city and beyond,” Heckman says. “Focusing on the power of small actions—our small gardens, our
February 2024
NorthBaybiz 41
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