Good News
If you find yourself searching for some good news this March, I have some for you.
Trees For Life wrapped a successful year by planting more than 35,000 urban trees, many to celebrate and thank our Heroes: Health care workers, first responders, members of our Canadian Armed Forces (in particular the Royal Canadian Air Force), and even our co-founder Tony DiGiovanni had a forest planting to honour his commitment to Trees For Life and to celebrate his 70th birthday.
That was last year. What about 2025?
We plan to plant over 150,000 urban trees and quadruple our planting budget.
We can make ambitious plans like this for a few reasons. One is the very successful fundraising campaign for the Michael de Pencier Legacy Fund.
When Michael, our founding board member and source of constant inspiration passed away in October his close friend Eric Jackman stepped up with a $100,000 challenge. We did our best to spread the message that the money raised would be matched by Mr. Jackman AND the 2 Billion Trees Program through Natural Resources Canada. Thanks to our generous donors, over $500,000 was raised to plant trees in 2025 in honour of our good friend Michael.
We are excited to have Marina Dimitriadis join our staff team as the full-time manager of operations and tree-planting partnerships. Through her work, we have a long list of municipalities, conservation authorities, private citizens, and corporations committed to planting trees where Canadians live, work, and play.
We are committed to helping them.
If you know of any organization with a budget and access to at least one hectare (2.47 acres) of urban land for tree planting, we are prepared to match them up to 50% of the costs. In a nutshell, that is our business.
We facilitate, amplify, and accelerate tree planting in urban areas across Canada.
If you know someone who would like to chat about collaborative tree planting you can reach Marina Dimitriadis.
Hero Forests
Our concept of planting trees to honour people expands. We invite mayors and municipal council members to join us as they identify the people who have enhanced well-being in their communities. Do you know your mayor or a Council member who might want to work with us? Or, the manager of your local forestry/parks department? Please send them our way via info@treesforlife.ca.
Public Tree Planting
This year we are pulling out all the stops to create exciting and well-organized public tree planting events. Sat. April 26, Earth Day, we currently have four events in Southern Ontario planned. More to come. Sign up now to learn more details on locations and dates as they become available. We hope to attract over 1,000 Canadians to tree-planting events this year. It would be wonderful if you and your family would join us!
Good news?
As we consider what we value about being Canadian and living in this country, I challenge every reader to help make Canada better by planting a native, urban tree.
What do you think?
Mark Cullen
