Our Blog

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.

Since 2018, The Park People has refined our approach to community greening. The Park People is partnering with community leaders, offering technical expertise and project facilitation for residents that want to engage in continued, sustained greening at the neighborhood scale. This approach begins by hirimg local contractors to build up neighborhood capacity to lead community greening projects. In this way, we connect local neighborhood organizations to resources, and provide the framework for continued, sustained greening projects. Although planting trees is by itself beneficial, the full potential of environmental, public health, and economic benefits of tree planting can be maximized by communities if they are leading the greening efforts. At the same time, because the great bulk of Denver’s potential locations for new trees are on private property, Denver cannot grow the urban forest it needs unless communities buy into the effort. In short, communities need trees, but trees need communities.