Meet one of your local OCF Tree Amigos: Kylee. She was once a volunteer with us, and now she is one of our stellar Tree Amigos (along with her sister, Sabrina, who has recently completed our Tree Amigo class).
What does it take to be a Tree Amigo? To become a Tree Amigo you must go through a 5 session training. The training consists of an overview of our organization, a community nursery work day, a community planting event, a tree care and stewardship class, and a Lawn Busters lawn conversion project. On most Saturdays, Kylee can be found at our Nursery, hard at work and dressed in full Our City Forest uniform. In this interview we talk about getting involved with OCF, serving the community, and other topics.
We interviewed Kylee to find out more about her time with OCF.
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Tell us about yourself. Anything you want people to know about you?
Kylee: I am a senior at Piedmont Hills High School. I started volunteering with Our City Forest the summer between my sophomore and junior year because I couldn't find a job and I knew Maddy was an AmeriCorps member and so she told me I should go here and I started going...and it was the summer so I had nothing to do [laughs], so I came Thursday, Friday and Saturday almost every week at the nursery and it caught a passion with me. I've always liked the outdoors and I live really close to Alum Rock Park, I go there, like, every Sunday and so I want to major in environmental engineering and I want to work in Habitat Restoration when I grow up.Are you from the San Jose area?
Kylee: Yes, I’ve lived in the same house all my life...there's a trailhead to Alum Rock Park right in my neighborhood and it's a very special place and the whole San Jose area is really important to me.So you like volunteering in your own community?
Kylee: Yeah, because I know that it's going to help people who are around me; I see the Our City Forest trees at school and every time I walk by I’m so proud because I can say ‘I’m part of that’.What made you want to become a Tree Amigo?
Kylee: I became a Tree Amigo because the nursery workers pressured me into doing it [laughs]. Every time I would see them they would say ‘You should sign up for the Tree Amigo course!’ so I finally did it and said ‘We’ll see what happens’.And are you glad you did?
Kylee: Yeah I'm super glad I did it. I get to do so much more stuff now. It’s so much more fun; I mean, it was already fun doing volunteer stuff but now I can like lead other groups of volunteers and I’m friends with all the workers. And I can pressure other people, like my sister, into being a Tree Amigo. I get to wear the shirt and people ask me questions.What is your favorite part about being a Tree Amigo?
Kylee: I think my favorite part about being a Tree Amigo, like above being a normal volunteer, is knowing how important I am to the organization and how much importance my work has, and like being more involved I started seeing and going to more things and seeing all the people that are affected - like going to a Lawn Bust and seeing the lady we did the lawn bust for and how happy she was. Going to school and seeing the trees at school. Going to plantings everywhere, and seeing all the people working at the nursery, it kind of gives you a better idea of like the big scale stuff thats going on.
So knowing the impact of your work is really helpful and beneficial to people?
Kylee: Yeah it's so much more involved when you're a Tree Amigo. I’ve taught a bunch of people how to tie trees and do transplants and stuff.What made you really originally wanted to become a Tree Amigo rather than just staying a volunteer?
Kylee: Well you do a lot of the same stuff when you're a volunteer, and I had sort of started doing some more Tree Amigo type things; Vera took me into the greenhouse and all this sort of more specialized and individual things you can do without a big group. And I thought that was really cool because I can work in the greenhouse and I can do things by myself because I know I'm trusted to do all these special activities that may be even more helpful than what day-to-day volunteers do.What advice/tips would you tell someone who is interested in volunteering (or becoming a TA) that has never worked with OCF before?
Kylee: I would say try it a few times, because first of all, I haven't seen anyone from my Tree Amigo lesson since the graduation. I feel like some people do it and then just think they’re done. You don't realize how impactful it can be for you if you keep coming back, when you keep coming back and everyone says ‘hi’ to you and you know you're a known presence there. It's so much better when you can look and go ‘I helped fix these things’ and ‘ I helped plant these trees’ and you can see it growing. Even if you’re a volunteer and it’s been one day, and you’re weeding and working in the brush pile and you're like ‘oh this kind of sucks’ you don’t realize how if you keep coming back and coming back you realize ‘I did this thing’ or ‘I fixed that’ even though maybe it didn't feel fun at first, once you realize everything you're doing is helping other people and helping the whole organization move along you feel so much more enlightened.Is that what made you want to come back, instead of just stopping right after graduation
Kylee: Yeah, I don't know, it was my mom's birthday and then I went to the Tree Planting with my sister and missed two weeks and I thought ‘I need to go back, they’re going to miss me’. I feel an obligation for it now, it's not the strongest obligation, I’m not going to lose my mind - but I do feel a need to come back and keep working. It's not a bad thing, it's a good thing.Do you have a favorite shrub/tree?
Kylee: I have to kind of say the Norfolk Pine just because it's kind of like a staple of the nursery, and how much Mike showed it to me. I love it, it’s weird looking, it has this plastic feeling and pine needles on it. It's just so fun looking, it looks like a cartoon. And if I had to pick a second one, it would be the gingko because they’re also kind of funny looking; I planted one last week it was so cute. I love their kind of weird almost foot shaped leaves, and they just have so many trivia facts about them. So I think those are my top two. But all of them are so cool.Where do you see yourself taking the experience you’ve gotten from OCF in the future?Kylee: Well I see taking it into school when I go to college, because I know that a lot of the information I have from this can coincide with environmental engineering. It's about using your knowledge to rebuild the environment after people have done bad things to it. One thing they did, in all the mines in Colorado, they used; environmental engineers were the people who fixed the runoff that was affecting the water and stuff like that. So I know that I can use knowledge of the environment and trees and all that sort of stuff to help me in my career.
Yeah, it’s going to be super helpful. A lot of AmeriCorps members here are environmental studies or science majors. It all connects.
Kylee: Yeah, following your passion, hopefully I'm heading in the right place. I think that's what Our City Forest has shown me, its shown me that this is the thing I want to do. Cause I was always kind of ‘ehhh I don't know what I want to do’ but then I found this and I think this is so much fun; I want to keep doing this, I don't want to stop.Have you met someone through volunteering that has inspired you?
Kylee: Thats hard, because everyone is so cool. Nancy has always been super supportive; I really love her. When we go to events and stuff I always talk with Nancy, I always hang out with her. And the original nursery workers I worked with, like Vera and Andy and Mike and Jill - those guys, they really inspired me to keep working hard and keep trying at this. And Maddy too. There's a lot of people, there's not just one. The environment that everyone creates as a whole is so supportive and fun and everyone wants you to succeed. But if you make a mistake transplanting a tree no one will beat you up for it, they'll just say ‘hey let's fix this and let's keep going, we’re doing great’ - nothing is ever a problem. It’s such a great environment.
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Kylee is right, Tree Amigos help Our City Forest in a major way and we couldn’t do all that we do without them. Thank you to Kylee for all that you do with Our City Forest, we hope you continue on your path to becoming an environmental engineer and inspire others to care for their urban forest!
If Kylee’s interview inspired you to become a Tree Amigo, head to ourcityforest.org/tree-amigo to sign up for our 5 week class starting on January 11th or check out our upcoming volunteering opportunities at ourcityforest.org/calendar !
