Massachusetts YouthBuild Coalition and Eagle Eye Institute Coordinate Massachusetts Arbor Day Celebration to Help Plant Roots for the Future of Urban Youth
Eagle Eye Institute (EEI) and the Massachusetts YouthBuild Coalition are coordinating a statewide Massachusetts Arbor Day Celebration that is mobilizing urban youth to take action to combat global warming.
YouthBuild students, municipal arborists, tree wardens and Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) staff in 13 cities across Massachusetts will plant trees in their communities on Arbor Day, April 27, 2007. The Massachusetts Arbor Day Celebration is aimed at providing hands-on experience for these students from underserved urban neighborhoods while helping them to take action to improve their community’s health.
These local community groups will plant more than 200 trees—100 in Boston and the rest among the 12 other municipalities: Belmont/Waltham, Brockton, Cambridge, Fall River, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Quincy, Somerville, Springfield and Worcester.
The statewide effort is funded in part by an Urban Forestry Challenge grant from the DCR as part of EEI’s 9-month Green Industries Career Pathway (GICP) program. EEI is currently working to refine the program, which is being implemented through a partnership with YouthBuild USA and The Trustees of Reservations. The GICP program model increases awareness and knowledge about the environment and the value of urban and community forestry through learning, stewardship and career-bridging programs.
“The Massachusetts Arbor Day Celebration brings together local youth, professional arborists, and government and community leaders and it will demonstrate how important trees are for the overall health of our communities,” said Eagle Eye Institute Executive Director Renee Toll-DuBois. “As active participants in the plantings, the local youth gain valuable experience and training, bringing to life our slogan that we are ‘planting roots for our future.’”
Based in Somerville, MA, Eagle Eye Institute is dedicated to developing and disseminating innovative environmental education programs that transform the lives of urban youth through hands-on exploratory learning about the environment and career bridging to natural resource fields. EEI strives to make the natural environment more accessible to urban people with a focus on urban youth in underserved neighborhoods and urban youth of color. It incorporates its 3-tiered model for social change into all of its programs—environmental learning to build awareness, stewardship to develop responsibility, and career-bridging to cultivate leadership.
Since EEI’s inception in 1991, its programs have introduced more than 3,500 multi-ethnic youth from community organizations in Greater Boston, the Northeast region and other parts of the country, to natural environments. It has also trained Champions across the nation to provide EEI’s signature “Learn About Forests” programs for local urban youth.
“We’re extremely excited to be partnering with the Massachusetts YouthBuild Coalition to coordinate this tree planting effort on a statewide level for this year’s Arbor Day,” said Toll-DuBois. “In addition to improving the health of the Commonwealth’s residents, the Arbor Day tree plantings will demonstrate the benefits of organizational partnerships and individual community efforts, resulting in a positive impact on direct community service.”
The Massachusetts YouthBuild Coalition seeks to provide a forum for the leadership of local YouthBuild programs to share and develop best practices in the provision of youth development services. YouthBuild is a youth and community development program that addresses core issues facing low-income communities: housing, education, employment, crime prevention, and leadership development. In YouthBuild programs, unemployed and undereducated young people, ages 16-24, work toward their GED or high school diploma while learning job skills by building affordable housing for homeless and low-income people in their community.
“YouthBuild has opened the window of success and opportunity for me to climb through,” said Rahmell Brown, 20, of Worcester, MA. “To me, YouthBuild is like a father figure. It helps us build trust and social skills, and it keeps us off the streets. I appreciate the chance YouthBuild has given me to overcome my past and move forward in life.”
By collaborating, building alliances, leveraging partnerships and grant writing, the Massachusetts YouthBuild Coalition shares its comprehensive youth development expertise and generates support for its 11 local YouthBuild programs in Boston, Brockton, Cambridge-Chelsea, Fall River, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Quincy, Springfield and Worcester.
“A healthy environment, including trees, provides benefits beyond just the physical ones,” said Greg Mumford, Deputy Director of YouthBuild Boston. “Healthier neighborhoods mean healthier people, and healthier people create better communities!”
The Arbor Day Celebration at each site is expected to draw state and local leaders in the public, private and non-profit sectors, as well as local youth and community members. All sites have been chosen with an emphasis on restoring equity across the city, planting trees in areas where they are needed most, primarily in low-income neighborhoods, where tree canopy has traditionally been low and where the increased shade and health effects of these trees will be well-appreciated.
This year’s statewide celebration follows the success of a similar Arbor Day event held in Boston in 2006. At that event, Eagle Eye Institute and YouthBuild Boston worked with Boston’s Urban Forest Coalition (BUFC) and other organizations to plant 100 trees in Dorchester, Mission Hill, East Boston, Mattapan and Roslindale.
For more information on the 2007 Massachusetts Arbor Day celebration, including sponsorship information, please contact Renée Toll-DuBois or Emma Lathan at Eagle Eye Institute at (617) 666-5222 or elathan@eagleeyei.org or visit Eagle Eye Institute’s website at www.eagleeyeinstitute.org
Date: 3/13/2007
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