Volunteer with us!
photo: Mary Kay Nitchie
Friends of Trees in Eugene/SpringfieldOther Volunteer RolesHigh School and Community Groups: Plant With Us!Our Green Space Initiative planting events are excellent opportunities for groups to learn how to plant trees and work together as a team! The events are a turnkey way to provide a community- and environmentally-oriented experience that is healthy and fun. All you need to do is pick a planting event and let us know you'll be there. If you're interested, please fill out our group form (link below), and we'll be in touch with more information. We provide coffee and breakfast treats as well as gloves, tools, and trained volunteer guidance. All we ask is that you dress appropriately for the weather, since we plant rain or shine (or that gray somewhere in between). The events begin promptly at 9:00 am and last until about 1:00 pm, so we ask that groups arrive by 8:45 am to sign in and be assigned to a planting crew. It's a great way to get outside, learn how to plant trees, meet people, and help make your community greener and healthier! If you or members of your group are under 18 years old, please read more about our youth waiver requirement and, if appropriate, our service learning hours policy. Reserve your spot for our annual Forest Park planting! (February 18)Join us on Saturday, February 18th for our annual Forest Park planting in partnership with Portland Parks & Recreation. This is always an extremely popular event and therefore we need you to reserve your spot in advance. You can do so using our online form or by emailing Andy or Jenny or by calling one of us at 503-595-0213. Once you sign up, we'll contact you with more information. This will be run like our normal plantings and will run from about 9:00am - 1:00pm. Plant By Bike! is BackCarbon neutral is a great way to be, but how about being carbon negative--actually doing something that nets a decrease in your carbon emissions? That's right: Plant By Bike! is back again this season! We have six more neighborhood planting events that will feature at least one planting crew powered solely by bicycles! We'd love to have you join us, especially if you have a bike trailer. But even if you don't have a trailer, please join us to pedal your way to a healthier, more robust urban forest! Please SIGN-UP HERE to let us know which planting(s) you'd like to attend so we can get a good headcount of how many cyclist/planters we can expect. Here's the list of the remaining dates and locations:
We hope you can join us! 
photo: Chijo Takeda
Current Volunteer NeedsOur planting season is officially underway! Our office is a hive of activity at this time of year, and we always have work that we need assistance with. If you're interested in volunteering with us, please let us know a little about you as well as the activities you'd like to help with. At this point, we're recruiting for some specific volunteer roles: Wednesday night tree callers, Wednesday morning planters, Friday loading volunteers, and Saturday pick-up truck drivers. We'll be in touch with more information. Thanks! Have a Pick-up Truck & Time on Saturday Mornings?We are always in need of more help getting trees to their final homes on planting day. We generally load 10-12 trees into an open-bed pick-up truck for our planting our crews. This role is on a Saturday morning between now and April, from about 8:00 am to 1:00 pm. If you're interested, please let us know and we'll put your name on a list of people to contact for helping out. Be a Tree CallerWould you like to help get more trees planted around town? Do you like talking with people interested in the same thing? You can do both as a tree caller for Friends of Trees this season. This is a brand new volunteer position that we developed for the coming season. Since we're planning to plant a record number of trees, we are trying to help our staff and neighborhood coordinators complete all of their phone calls efficiently--and you can help! You’ll help connect interested homeowners to the right tree for their space and tastes, as well as let them know how they can volunteer at the planting event in their neighborhood. It’s a bit of community organizing and a bit of customer service--all in the service of increasing our urban canopy. Learn more about this role by reading this Growth Rings blog post, and let us know if you're interested! Be a Community ChampionChampion the green spaces in Washington and Clackamas counties where Friends of Trees has plantings! We're always striving to increase our visibility in and connection to the communities in these two counties for our Green Space Initiative program. With more volunteer support at our plantings, and more support in the community generally, more trees will get planted, which makes healthier green spaces for everyone. We'd welcome your help working with local groups to advertise the plantings, distribute door hangers and yard signs to neighbors close to the planting sites, host a yard sign with the dates and locations of the plantings, work with social and local media to raise awareness of our local plantings, and generally increase our presence and profile in these communities. If you're interested in helping Friends of Trees grow in Washington and Clackamas counties, we'd love to talk with you! Friends of Trees in Eugene/SpringfieldOn September 28, the Eugene Tree Foundation joined forces with Friends of Trees to become our Friends of Trees Eugene office! Friends of Trees Eugene is organizing dozens of tree planting work parties this planting season, and they're recruiting for volunteers. Click here for a calendar of all of the work party locations and dates. If you'd like to volunteer with them, please email Erik Burke or call him at 541-632-3683 to learn more. Other Volunteer RolesFriends of Trees welcomes volunteers all year, in all parts of our work, from planning to planting. Learn more about these volunteer opportunities below. For a list of our volunteer leadership roles, please click HERE. Tree planters make it all happen by planting trees at weekend events between November and April. We welcome people of all ages and abilities. No previous experience is necessary. Our helpful crew leaders guide small groups of volunteers. Just find a planting on our Portland-Vancouver calendar or our Eugene-Springfield calendar, dress for the weather, and join us. And, of course, enjoy the free coffee and donuts! Friday loading volunteers help us prepare for the next day's planting events by loading trees and tools into our trucks. This is one of our most important office volunteer roles during planting season! Registration volunteers help on planting day by ensuring our volunteers all feel welcome, are assigned to the correct teams, and sign waivers. Did we mention free coffee and donuts? Photographers help photograph our plantings for use in social media formats, printed and electronic media, and organizational archive purposes. We'd love to showcase your work and we always provide attribution. Summer festival volunteers staff a table at an event and chat with people about Friends of Trees opportunities. This is an important way to encourage people to plant trees with us...and a great way to go to local festivals for free. Interns commit to a regular schedule for a set period of time. Projects for interns vary widely according to our current needs and the potential intern's interests and skills. Contact us to find out more and to talk to us about your interests. Office volunteers help with office projects from filing to entering information in our database to helping us prepare for planting day. Below is just a small example of our current needs.
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