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Fittingly, Hayley Kwasniewski interviewed to become The Park People’s first Development Manager while sitting under a Platt Park tree. They accepted The Park People’s offer and quickly introduced new approaches to donor communication while effectively employing time-tested methods to significantly increase grant and donation revenue.  Now, Hayley will be taking the next step on their career path by pursuing a PhD in Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Mackenzie Sanders has joined The Park People as its new Development Manager, succeeding Hayley. After growing up in Tucson and graduating from the University of Arizona, Mackenzie spent three years in New York, raising funds for non-profits and obtaining a master’s degree in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Now, she says, she is glad to be closer to home, the mountains, and western landscapes. What attracted Mackenzie to The Park People? While interviewing, she noticed that “everyone finds joy in this work.” 

It's been nearly a year since The Park People launched its Workforce Development Program: TreeForce. Since launching, we have graduated two cohorts of pre-apprenticies, expanded our curriculum, and are currently preparing to grow our impact even further. Our first cohort enrolled 10 pre-apprentices, with five reaching graduation. Our second cohort enrolled 12 pre-apprentices, with 11 reaching graduation, and five already receiving jobs in forestry. Our dedicated staff and pre-apprentices are helping to improve Denver's urban forest, fill much needed gaps in the forestry industry, and provide pathways to employment for members of the Denver community. 

On Earth Day, Denver’s urban forest gained 1,400 trees as hundreds of new tree owners picked up their baby trees at Denver Digs Trees’ City Park and Sloan’s Lake Park distribution sites and​​​​​​​ hurried home to plant them. As they grow, these trees will give Denverites reason to remember and celebrate this year’s Earth Day for many years to come by making our city greener, cooler, and more beautiful while also saving $225,000 in energy costs, storing eight million pounds of carbon, and managing 52 million gallons of stormwater.   

Best of all, 63% of the new trees found homes in the low tree canopy neighborhoods where they are needed the most. Building up the tree canopy in those areas has long been The Park People’s primary focus. To encourage and enable tree planting, The Park People offers trees for only $10 to residents of 28 low tree canopy neighborhoods. Twelve percent of this year’s tree recipients qualified for “treeships,” which allowed them to receive free trees. 

A few years ago, when Diana Anick and her family moved to Denver, she sought a part time job that would enable her to “make a difference.”  Fortunately, she became the executive assistant to Executive Director Kim Yuan-Farrell.  Di, as she is known to her friends, and her husband Alan embraced The Park People’s Tribute Tree program, planting three trees in Platte Park and another six in Washington Park.  Although Di recently retired, she continues to volunteer and to donate because she still sees The Park People as an effective means of “leaving things in a better place.” Di’s enthusiasm for, and commitment to, The Park People drew in her mother, Jane King, who has made several very generous donations. Read more...

The City of Denver’s Urban Forest Strategic Planning process is an important and exciting opportunity for our community to plan holistically for the robust forest that we need now and into the future. The Community Survey is one way the City is engaging the many and diverse stakeholders in our communities to voice their wants, needs, and opinions that will inform the plan. Make your voice heard - complete the survey!

Curious about what The Park People thinks? Makes sense given our 5+ decades working in urban forestry. We’ve compiled our thoughts on the survey questions here.