Whatever holidays, celebrations, rituals, or reflections you’re observing this season, we hope you find ways to feel close to friends and family, even from afar.
Wishing you a peaceful holiday and a healthy, happy new year!
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Canopy's Tree Walk program consists of neighborhood tree walk routes throughout Palo Alto, Mountain View, East Palo Alto, and Menlo Park. In response to COVID-19, we bring these tree walks to your phone.
Canopy’s new Interactive Tree Walk Guides provide mobile-friendly maps that help you navigate and find the trees quickly, along with images, videos, and information about each tree to help you learn how they benefit our ecosystems.
Thank you to Canopy’s interns Veronica Weber and Max Klotz, as well as Board Member Maria Chai, for their work on this project.
The first in this series is the Palo Verde neighborhood in Palo Alto. We’d love for you to try it and share your feedback.
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Planting Season Highlights |
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Working together to increase tree cover in North Fair Oaks
As we continue greening local neighborhoods with small, socially distanced plantings, adhering to our safety protocols, we share with you highlights from the Siena Youth Center neighborhood tree planting. This collaborative effort between Canopy, North Fair Oaks Community Alliance, and Climate Ready North Fair Oaks resulted in 12 trees being planted throughout the neighborhood. Thank you to the residents, partners, and planting leaders for their hard work on this planting!
Student partners dig in to deepen Canopy's impact
The Siena Youth Center was Canopy’s second planting in North Fair Oaks this season. The first was in September, in partnership with Redwood City PAL. For this planting, we were also grateful to partner with Gabe Ancajas, a high school student at The Nueva School, whose passion for videography and nonprofits led him to Canopy. He volunteered to tell the story of this tree planting, and we love his creation!
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Canopy was also grateful to partner with Stanford students enrolled in a course titled “Shaping the Future of the Bay Area,” part of the Stanford Future Bay Initiative. These students wished to help Canopy identify where tree planting would have the most impact, down to the parcel level.
In a few short months, these students created a new tree planting prioritization tool based on factors such as existing greenery, heat index, and amount of foot traffic. Canopy used the tool for the Siena Youth Center neighborhood planting to focus outreach efforts and identify sites where trees would make the most difference. We have high hopes to adopt and share this mapping tool to identify priority planting areas in other communities, too.
Thank you, Derek, Jenna, Danielle, and Sophia, for all your hard work!
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Danielle and Jenna from the Stanford team joined us at the tree planting event last Saturday to see (and plant!) the on-the-ground results of their partnership. |
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Carbon in non-forest trees
The world’s trees serve as important carbon “sinks”—pulling carbon out of the atmosphere as they grow and storing it in their trunks, branches, roots, and leaves. Most research into trees and carbon storage focuses on forests, yet trees growing outside of forests contribute significantly to the total amount of carbon stored on land. NASA scientists and their collaborators have developed a new method for mapping and measuring these trees. According to NASA, these scientists have discovered “billions of trees in arid and semi-arid regions...laying the groundwork for more accurate global measurement of carbon storage on land.” Read more about NASA's efforts to measure carbon in non-forest trees.
Do trees communicate with each other?
Recent scientific studies indicate that trees of the same species exhibit communal tendencies and tend to form alliances with trees from other species. They seem to depend on cooperative, interdependent relationships and networks to thrive. Scientists call this mycorrhizal networks. Read this fascinating article in The New York Times Magazine to know more about these networks and the social life of the forests.
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Stanford's Tree House Program
This athletics season, with fans unable to watch and cheer their favorite teams in person, Stanford Athletics joined together with Lowe’s for an innovative, community-oriented project. Lowe’s donated 450 native drought-resistant trees to Stanford Athletics, which placed the trees throughout its stadium for a “home forest advantage.” Once the season ends, Stanford will donate the trees to community partners throughout the Bay Area for replanting in local neighborhoods. Learn more about Stanford’s Tree House Program.
Canopy is delighted to be a recipient of some of the stadium trees. We plan to replant 15 of these trees in 2021 to grow urban tree canopy in the Midpeninsula and create healthier greener communities.
Calling all Mountain View residents! Free tree giveaway
The City of Mountain view will make Arbor Day Trees available to all Mountain View residents for planting on their property. There is a wide selection of trees available for planting. Residents will plant and maintain the tree on their property. This event is a part of the City’s forestry restoration efforts and the celebration of the State of California’s Arbor Week March 7-14. Trees will be delivered to eligible residents in late April or early May. Interested Mountain View residents who wish to participate in the Mountain View Arbor Day Free Tree Giveaway sign up here!
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Thank you for your #GivingTuesday generosity |
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A huge thank you to all who gave the gift of trees for #GivingTuesday! And to everyone who has given so generously this fall to support nature in our cities.
Canopy’s work is only possible thanks to you—our community of donors, volunteers, grassroots partners, and dedicated residents whose individual acts of service and generosity strengthen the fabric of our communities and connect people with nature outside their doorstep. Thank you so much for your partnership!
Two weeks left to have your gift doubled: Thanks to eight generous funders, all gifts are still being matched through December 31st, up to a total of $52,000. If you’d like to support Canopy’s work with a year-end gift, your donation and your impact will be doubled!
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Recent Tree Gifts, Grantors, and Match Funders |
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Tree Gifts and Dedications |
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Susan Mendelsohn
In honor of David Hettig
Sally O’Neil
In honor of Kammy Lo
Suzanne Garadis
In honor of John Erving
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The Swihart, Stoltz, and Wyns Families
In memory of H. Gregg Swihart
Edward and Anne Spaulding
In honor of Anne and John Draeger
Adam Stein
In memory of Kalman and Gladys Stein
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Generous match funders
Meryl and Rob Selig
Matthieu Devin and Catherine Grange
Law-Sun Community Fund
Mary Dateo
Kammy Lo and Kowsik Guruswamy
Anonymous (3)
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Your support is truly transformative—thank you! |
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Do you enjoy hearing the latest news from Canopy? Help us spread the word on the work we’re doing to bring trees and nature to the Midpeninsula. Share this newsletter with a friend and invite them to join Canopy.
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Canopy's mission is to grow the urban forest in Midpeninsula communities for the benefit of all. Our vision is a day when every resident of the Midpeninsula can step outside to walk, play, and thrive under the shade of healthy trees. |
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