Since the October storm of 2006, thousands of volunteers have picked up shovels and started digging into their sense of community, helping replant trees in Buffalo and surrounding suburbs, restoring the natural beauty of the Queen City.
This year, as part of Earth Day and Arbor Day, volunteers will once again get down and dirty as they take part in replanting trees all around Buffalo in the upcoming weekends. Volunteers will be heading to several local parks and other tree-populated areas to replant lost trees and give new trees a chance to flourish in the City of Good Neighbors.
Opportunities are available for anyone interested in offering their services. Volunteers are needed for different planting events going on around the city.
Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy will be planting between 250 and 300 trees in Buffalo parks on May 2 and May 9, from 9 a.m. to noon on both days, according to Steven Nagowski, volunteer coordinator for Buffalo Olmstead Parks.
"Every year, we have a tree-planting event in the spring or fall, which is scattered through all of the parks in our system," Nagowski said. "What we are trying to do is attempt to reforest a system that has not had proper maintenance over the years. We are also still recovering [from] the October 2006 storm, where we lost many trees and a majority of the trees still standing have damage to them."
The new trees are ready to go straight into the ground; all the saplings need is volunteer workers to muscle the 15-foot, 300-pound trees in place, a process that takes several volunteers per tree and quite a bit of shovel work.
A construction vehicle with a soil augur takes care of the initial groundbreaking, but volunteers need to shape the hole, remove the burlap covering from the trunk and backfill the hole for each new tree, according to Nagowski.
"There is a large amount of work to be done for each tree," Nagowski said. "We need about 150 volunteers to stay on track, but there is no limit to how many volunteers can sign up. The more the merrier; one person cannot plant these trees. . . . Each one takes at least three to four people."
The tree inventory includes fir, pine, spruce and a variety of understory trees, all native to the Western New York area.
Olmsted Conservancy is placing a majority of the new trees in Delaware and Cazenovia Parks, and will be planting in Riverside Park, Prospect Park, Heacock Park and Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, according to Nagowski.
Volunteers can also offer their services to Re-Tree WNY, a nonprofit organization dedicated to replanting lost trees from the October storm.
Northup Avenue near South Campus will be a planting site for 15 new trees on May 2. On May 7, the 10,000th tree dedication will occur at a location yet to be determined.
Re-Tree WNY plans to replace approximately 30,000 trees that were damaged or ruined in the October storm, according to www.re-treewny.org. The project will take place over the next five years and so far has planted 8,100 trees.
Volunteers are needed for Re-Tree and Olmsted planting events, and tree planting is not the only job. Aside from regular tree maintenance, free labor is needed to help organize fund raisers, find areas in need of replanting and to help spread word about volunteer work.
More information can be found at www.buffaloolmstedparks.org and www.re-treewny.org.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
