The Treeplenish club ended up passing out 256 tree saplings to students, faculty, and non-Westview adults, double the number that they had at their annual event last year. . Previously, the club had been managed by the outside Treeplenish organization. However this year, the organization downsized, no longer operating in California. Determined to keep the club running, co-presidents Alexis Ostrow (10) and Danica Deleon (10) took a hands-on approach with the event, taking over responsibilities previously handled by Treeplenish.
“This year the organization could help us through email, but they couldn’t do what they normally do, which is ordering the trees, shipping them, and working with the nurseries,” Ostrow said. “We usually just do the advertising and work the event, but this year we had to do that in addition to everything else.”
The girls set out to organize the event themselves, the first step of which was finding the trees. They contacted nurseries and nonprofits, organized the delivery of the trees, found student volunteers to run the event, and advertised. The club ended up having to switch suppliers for the trees as they found difficulty getting in contact with their primary supplier.
“They would not pick up the phone, but they said they would work with us, but we weren’t making any progress,” Ostrow said. “Then I received a business card from the Trees San Diego nonprofit, so I called them to see if we could make more progress with them. They were really helpful and got us the trees.”
The club ended up passing out 256 trees to students, faculty, and non-Westview adults, double the number that they had last year. Unlike last year, the club sold non-fruit trees and they gave the trees out for free instead of selling them.
“We used to have pre-orders, and people would pay ahead so we knew that someone was going to come,” Deleon said. “We also used to have fruit trees, but this year we had small non-fruit trees. They’re free because we are not a financial club, and are not supposed to deal with money. We had a Japanese Blueberry Tree, which is like a hedge tree, White Crape Myrtle, Lavender Crape Myrtle, and Holly Leaf Cherry.”
Ostrow said that the hope was to reduce Westview’s carbon footprint and to inspire people to be more environmentally friendly.
“We’re also trying to make trees more accessible to the community, and just encourage planting them in general, because it’s good for the environment,” Ostrow said.
Deleon said that part of what made the event a success was the in-person advertising.“A positive thing we did was that we decided to have someone hold a sign out on the street, which actually drew a lot of people in and helped direct people on where to go,” Deleon said.
Knowing that some may not know how to care for the saplings, the club also made personal care packages for the trees.
“We had a sapling care guide that Treeplenish gave us, and we did research on information to know about each species,” Deleon said. “We made slides, and printed a QR code for people to scan at the event and learn more about the different kinds of trees before they picked one.”
Through figuring out the details of running the event separate from the official organization, Ostrow and Deleon said they have become better prepared for next year.
“This year we had nothing to start with, which is also why the original nursery didn’t call us back,” Ostrow said. “But this year now we’re learning from that, and we had everyone write their emails and names down so we know for the future how many people are interested.”
Ostrow said that their hard work and problem-solving made for a successful event.
“The process was stressful, but we were really proud and satisfied with how many members of the community showed up,” Ostrow said. “After all the work we put in, the event ran really smoothly.”
