Saturday, September 20, 2025

3:00 – 5:00 PM

Bloomhouse, 2555 Pulgas Ave, East Palo Alto

On September 20th, please join Canopy in Celebrating our Champions of Hope at our annual Volunteer Appreciation Party and Tree Awards! At this free community celebration, we will honor our 2025 Canopy Tree Awardees and the volunteers, partners, and supporters who dig in to help plant hope for tomorrow. Hosted at Bloomhouse in East Palo Alto, festivities will include indoor/outdoor mingling, refreshments from local businesses, interactive displays to honor our volunteers, and a brief program toasting our 2025 Tree Awardees. RSVP and learn more about the awards here.

Congratulations to our 2025 Tree Award recipients! Stay tuned to learn more about their outstanding contributions, service, and dedication to our local urban forests.

Canopy Chair Award

Holly Pearson

Mary Dateo

Arnold Soforenko Award

Ruben Abrica

Community Roots Award

Jenny Degraaff

Todd Armstrong

Connect Community Charter School

Out-on-a-Limb Award

Anna Gomez

Young Forester Award

Gabriel Olivieri

Lissette Cortes

Paco Arreola

Oak Award

Joe Simitian

Anna Eshoo

Evergreen Ally Award

Taqueria La Cazuela

Canopy is offering our Community Forestry School as the UC Climate Stewards certification course in Santa Clara and San Mateo County! This free 9-week course will focus on urban tree planting and tree care as nature-based climate solutions, integrating climate science communication, environmental justice, and community stewardship. Upon completion of this course, students can:

• Receive certification as a UC Climate Steward
• Become a Canopy-Certified Community Forester
• Obtain 4 undergraduate credits through UC Davis (optional)

September 25 - November 20, 2025

Zoom classes on Thursdays from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Outdoor field experiences on Saturdays 10/4, 10/18, 11/4, 11/8

Bilingual course with live translations from English to Spanish

The application to enroll is due September 10, 2025!

Looking for a way to enjoy trees and plant hope in your community? Join us at an upcoming Canopy event!

Tania Becomes a Certified Environmental Educator

Canopy would like to congratulate K-12 Environmental Educator Tania Cooley for completing the Environmental Educator Certification Program through the Association for Environmental & Outdoor Education! As part of the program, Tania created and implemented a community action project titled “Saplings for Change: Adapting Tree Lessons for Climate Action, Community Forestry, and the Power of Tree.” Through this project, Tania updated Canopy’s lesson plans and added new materials to ensure our lessons are not only fun and interactive but teaching our students why we need to plant and care for trees in our communities, especially in the context of climate change. Canopy’s K-4th grade lessons are now more aligned with our work to plant and care for trees where people need them the most, helping inspire our younger generations to do the same.

Help Name Our New Van!

Thanks to the generous capacity-building support of Intuitive Foundation, Canopy has a new passenger van to add to our community fleet. But just calling it the “new van” feels like a missed opportunity. 

Will you join us to help give our van a creative community-sourced name? Bonus points for names that incorporate “health” and “van”. The winner of this van-naming contest will have the opportunity to receive a Canopy tote bag! Please submit your name ideas by August 10, 2025 in the form below.

In this special episode of Canopy Roots, our Teen Urban Foresters sit down with former Canopy Executive Director Catherine Martineau to reflect on the challenges, milestones, and lessons that defined her tenure and the legacy that continues to guide our work today. You can listen to the episode on Spotify, Amazon Music, or iHeartRadio.

Palo Alto | July 12, 2025 - Arborist Bo Firestone, food historian Peter Ruddock, and permaculturist Kris Jensen guided the 8th annual Edible Urban Forest Tree Walk. Starting at Johnson Park, we learned about Palo Alto’s edible trees, urban foraging policy, fun recipes, and tree care tips. At the end, walk participants enjoyed a tree “food” tasting activity at Gamble Garden. Canopy wishes to thank Bo, Peter, and Kris for a fun community tree walk! 

Canopy is deeply saddened by the loss of two of Palo Alto's environmental champions: Patricia “Trish” Mulvey and Robert “Bob” Harrington. We are grateful for their many years of dedicated service and advocacy. 

As a longtime advocate of waterway protection, Trish was involved in efforts to protect the San Francisquito Creek – where Coast Live Oak and California Bay Laurel trees flourish – and Bay Area Watershed. From founding CLEAN South Bay to serving with Save the Bay and the San Francisco Estuary Project, Trish dedicated her life to foster cleaner waterways, better flood protection, and healthier ecosystems for our communities. 

Bob was involved in many Palo Alto community efforts, from storm-drain improvement projects to emergency preparedness. When a measure to update Palo Alto’s aging storm system failed, Bob led the charge to reinvest in our storm drains. Volunteering on a storm drain committee, Bob worked with Susan Rosenberg, a founding Board member of Canopy, to get the vote for updating the community storm systems. Bob also was a volunteer neighborhood coordinator for emergency preparedness, helping connect his community with the knowledge and resources to be resilient and ready.

Beyond their noted stewardship, both Bob and Trish were committed champions of trees and the urban forest, often standing as Canopy allies and stalwart supporters working alongside the Canopy team in every important local advocacy effort. The Canopy community extends our heartfelt condolences to their families and loved ones.

Canopy is deeply grateful to our community of 60 donors who helped us successfully close our spring fundraising campaign. Your generous year-end push of $59,834 enabled us to reach our fundraising goal for fiscal year 2025.

Your support provides crucial stability as community-based organizations navigate today's challenging landscape. These 60 donors have helped us finish our year strong and planted seeds of hope for Canopy's future.

Thank you for believing in Canopy’s mission and investing in our communities.

Sandie Pearson

in honor of Holly Pearson

Christine Clark

in memory of Urban Cummings

Sally O’Neil and Ken Bencala

in honor of Holly Pearson

Guadalupe Aceves

in memory of Adelaida Aceves

Cynthia Snow

in honor of Murlene Riccitelli

Lockheed Martin

Sand Hill Angels Charitable Foundation

Valley Water

The Kimball Foundation

Canopy's mission is to collaborate with communities to grow and sustain equitable urban forests for all.

We envision connected communities thriving within a vibrant urban forest.