Interview with AmeriCorps Service Member Emma

Meet one of our local Our City Forest (OCF) full time Americorps service members: Emma. She has been serving with OCF for three (yes, three!) terms now. Her sister used to work here at OCF as well. 

She is part of the Lawn Busters team at OCF, and is often busy designing landscapes and converting properties into beautiful native gardens. In this interview we talk about what its been like to serve with AmeriCorps for the past 3 terms, giving back to the community, and the future beyond. 

We interviewed Emma to find out more about her time with OCF.

1. Do you have a favorite shrub/tree?

   Emma: Oh my gosh that's such a good question, I think that I do. Well I have a lot of favorites, but one that just came to mind is Salvia Bee’s Bliss. It's very beautiful. A low growing sage. The bees love it, and I love the bees.
   

2. Tell us about yourself. Anything you want people to know about you?

   Emma: I’m from the Hudson Valley in New York State. I went to a small liberal arts school in the western part of North Carolina called Warren Wilson college. It's a really special school because its a work college so every student on campus also had a job on campus. That made it a really meaningful, unique experience and I really loved it. I also learned about beekeeping there, which has become a very big passion of mine since then. I’m a beekeeper and have been keeping bees for three or four years now and I started doing that working at the garden on my college campus. I was caring for the hives there. I've been a member with OCF for a year and a half now, and this is my third Americorps term at Our City Forest. 
   

3. What made you want to become an AmeriCorps member?
   Emma: I think that AmeriCorps was really appealing to me because it provides  great job experience. I also feel really inspired by giving back to the community that I’m a part of. I just wanted to try something new and engage closely with the community. 
   

4. How did you get involved with OCF?
   Emma: Well, actually, my sister was an AmeriCorps member for two years and afterwards she was hired as the Nursery Manager and she really really loved her experience and would talk to me about it a lot. I was at a transitional time in my life and I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do, so she encouraged me to apply for OCF specifically. It sounded like a lot of fun and a great experience.
   

5. What is your favorite part about being a full time service member here at Our City Forest?
   Emma: It's definitely building really strong connections with community members and volunteers. I think that's the most important thing that we do; engaging the community so that they can continue to support our mission by being more sensitive to their water usage, learning about why native plants are important, why creating ecosystems are important, the benefits of trees, and all those things. That's probably the most rewarding part for me, to be able to teach people about all those things and engage them in what we do. 
   

6. What made you want to sign on for multiple terms?
   Emma: I felt like after my first term, which was just a six month term, I was just getting started taking advantage of all the opportunities that Our City Forest has to offer. I felt like I had already learned so much in such a short amount of time, that I really had only just started to know about the plants and all the things that we do. I felt like I wasn't really done learning yet, and I've just had such a wonderful experience here and it's been so much fun and I've met so many wonderful special people that will be lifelong friends. I just cant stop serving. 
   

7. So before you started serving you had no background in urban forestry or anything related?
   Emma: I had done a bunch of landscaping work and some farming too on the garden at my campus. So that was agriculture based. But I've always been interested in plants and growing plants, just not specifically California natives.
   

8. What advice/tips would you tell someone who is interested in joining the Our City Forest AmeriCorps team?
   Emma: I would say just to take in as much as you possibly can. And, don't expect that you're going to know everything right away. Just give yourself space to learn from others and be patient with yourself. It may seem really overwhelming at first; I showed up with very little knowledge about the plants or how to plant a tree. The amount of knowledge that I’ve learned just by keeping my eyes open and being receptive to other people's perspectives has been a really really meaningful experience for me. 
   

9. Where do you see yourself taking the experience you’ve gotten from Our City Forest in the future?
   Emma: I think I'll always pursue a career that has a close community engagement aspect to it. I think that it's really really important at this time that we’re all living in to form deep connections with the communities that we’re a part of. These are skills I will use in the future no matter what I do. I also hope to pursue a career in landscaping design, and I’ve learned a lot about that by serving here.

10. Have you met someone through Our City Forest that has inspired you?
    Emma: So many people! I would say the person who has made the biggest impact on me is definitely Edgar (our Lawnbuster and Stewardship Manager). I think that he’s just a really really amazing person and a great leader and mentor. I really admire the way that he teaches people with such a peaceful attitude. He gives people space to figure things out on their own. I've just learned so much from him and I'm really grateful for that. I also really appreciate all of the other members I’ve met here too and how passionate everyone is about our common goal to make this world a better place. 

Thank you to Emma for all that you do with Our City Forest, we deeply appreciate your continued dedication and service to OCF, and wish you all the best in the future! 

If Emma’s interview inspired you to become an Americorps member, head to http://www.ourcityforest.org/americorps-openings to sign up for one of the two upcoming service terms, starting on January 14th and March 24th. Or, if you’d like to volunteer with us, you can check out various volunteering opportunities at ourcityforest.org/calendar !

Interview with Tree Amigo Kylee

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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1. 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. 
   

2. 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. 
   

3. 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’. 
   

4. 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’.
   

5. 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. 
   

6. 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.
   

7. 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. 
   

8. 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. 
   

9. 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. 
   

10. 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. 
    

11. 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.  
    

12. 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. 
    

13. 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 !

Cultivating a Green Community!

As an organization and campaign, Our City Forest continually works to increase community awareness of the many benefits of trees, especially in the urban environment.  We’re strong believers that if people notice trees more, they grow to appreciate them more. In turn, this appreciation will manifest in a willingness to protect existing trees and advocate for new ones!

At OCF, we’re continuously leading programs to engage community members in the appreciation, protection, growth, and maintenance of our urban ecosystem. We will continue to be fueled by you, our community of advocates and volunteers, to keep planting it forward everyday! There are numerous ways to get involved in our mission--here’s a few to get you started!

1. Plant a Tree at Home
Did you know that one mature tree produces enough oxygen for two adults? There are numerous health, environmental, and economical benefits of planting trees, so why not plant one at your own home? Our City Forest is here to help you every step of the way, from processing your permits to caring for your new tree! In fact, we’ll even help you select the right tree for your site.

2. Donate
Give the gift of green-- 100% of our donations go toward our urban forestry, water conservation efforts, and environmental educational programming. A donation to Our City Forest is dedicated to creating a green future and improving our urban forests. Your contribution can make a direct impact on the environment of today and the future! We appreciate donations of all sizes, and even those that provide us with items on our wish list!

3. Spread Tree Knowledge
At Our City Forest, we’re committed to educating others on the importance of growing and caring for our urban forest. No matter how young or old, it’s never too late to learn about the growing demand for conservation. Request a group presentation for your local school or neighborhood organization-- the benefits are endless! Sharing your group presentation with an online registration tool can allow you to get the entire community involved.  Let’s use the power of people to achieve this needed transformation in homes, communities and cities!

4. Volunteer
Interested in getting a little dirt under your fingernails? Join us in our mission and volunteer with Our City Forest. There are so many ways to dedicate your time to our organization! We have volunteer opportunities in tree planting, tree caring, education, and even office help! Our volunteers are vital to the success at Our City Forest. We even offer Team-Building Workdays for company involvement. Volunteering is a great way to enrich your life, and dedicate some spare time to a meaningful cause! Check out our calendar for volunteer opportunities!

Thank you for continuing to support us in our mission to make Silicon Valley green, vibrant and environmentally friendly.