A Week’s Worth of Tree Celebration coming to Boston, April 24-30

Speak for the Trees, Boston announces their celebration of Arbor Week in collaboration with over a dozen community partners, including the Arnold Arboretum, The American City Coalition, and Boston College. In-person and online events, including forest bathing, a reading and writing event, and free-tree giveaways,  will be held from April 24 through April 30. All events are free and open to the public.

Founded in 2018, Speak for the Trees works to increase the size, health, and equity of Boston’s tree canopy, especially in underserved and under-canopied neighborhoods. Trees are critical components of the city’s landscape, providing shade and clean air and building strong and resilient communities. In the past 4 years the organization has planted hundreds of trees and distributed over 3,000 to residents. The mission of the organization is to increase tree coverage in Boston, especially in under-canopied and underserved communities.

“This year’s Arbor Day, on Friday April 29th, is the 150th anniversary of the holiday and we’re thrilled to be celebrating the holiday throughout Boston’s many neighborhoods,” said David Meshoulam, executive director. “Our diverse series of events celebrate the importance of trees and provide opportunities throughout the city for people to learn more about how they can help grow and sustain Boston’s tree canopy so that all residents can receive the numerous benefits of trees.”

Some highlights include a volunteering for seedling bagging on Earth Day, April 22, from 10am to 2pm, Forest Bathing tour on April 24 at 10:30 am and May 1st at 2pm with certified Forest Therapy Guide Tam Willey at the Arnold Arboretum, a free-tree giveaway in Nubian Square from 10am to 2pm on April 30th as part of the Savor the Square series, and a PoeTREE reading and writing event at the Seaport on Arbor Day, April 29th at 5:30pm. A full list of events can be found at treeboston.org/arborweek.

“Natixis IM is proud to sponsor the tree give away event at Savor the Square,” said Ron Taylor, EVP and Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Natixis Investment Managers in the US. “Having grown up in the area, I’m pleased to be involved with an organization that works diligently to restore tree equity and grow Boston’s urban forest.”

In addition, 15 community organizations will be distributing 1,400 free seedlings throughout the city in neighborhoods including Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, North End, Back Bay, Mission Hill and Fenway. Boston residents can stop by any of these seedling giveaway events to take home and plant their own free seedling. Info about seedling locations and times can be found at https://treeboston.org/events/category/seedling-giveaway/.

This year’s events are sponsored in part by Natixis Investment Managers, WS Development, and Eastern Bank. Events are quickly filling up, so please register soon! For additional information, please contact Reegan Moskowitz at [email protected].

More about Speak for the Trees can be found at http://treeboston.org.

A Land Acknowledgment:

Although we are celebrating America’s Arbor Day, we must pause and acknowledge that this celebration and reverence of trees did not begin in 1872 with white settlers of Nebraska creating a holiday. The Indigenous people of what is now Boston, Massachusetts, have long celebrated the power and importance of trees and stewarded this land, in part through trees, for hundreds of generations. We have much to learn from the deep knowledge still held within these communities. As we enter a week of national celebration of trees, we extend gratitude for the opportunity to work and meet on this sacred land. We extend our respect to citizens of these Nations – the Massachusett, the Wampanoag, and Nipmuc Peoples – and their ancestors who have lived here for over five hundred generations, and to all Indigenous people. We also affirm that this acknowledgement is insufficient. It does not undo the harm that has been done and continues to be perpetrated now against Indigenous people, their land, and their water. Our work is committed, in part, to dismantle the systems and heal the pain from this history. In whatever small part, we hope that our work together to celebrate trees can assist in this process.