Plant Trees, Plant Hope
Dec. 17, 2021
Austin, TX – A neon-vested volunteer passed a clipboard and a pen through the car window. The driver signed the adoption papers. The new sapling foster secured the young tree and drove it to its new home.
People waiting to adopt congested the entrance to the H-E-B in West Oak Hill. Cars filed into designated spots to fill out the paperwork and receive a five-gallon tree sapling.
All those involved — the volunteers, non-profit staff and those adopting the trees — had the same goal in mind.
“Plant trees. Plant hope.” The long-standing motto of TreeFolks echoed throughout the busy parking lot.
About 460 trees were adopted by Austin residents the day after Texas recognizes its state Arbor Day on the first Friday of November. Those who adopted a tree agreed to nurture it for at least two years, per the adoption papers. In signing this contract, they assumed a greater responsibility to the trees and promised their community that they would see to it that their tree established roots.
The morning before the tree adoption event, Matt Janowski turned off the 973 Farm to Market Road onto Platt Lane. The dusty trail weaved through agricultural land into the center of Hornsby Bend. Past the Austin Water Utility plant sat a three-bedroom, one bath 1960s converted home.
Gillian Hodler, the volunteer coordinator for TreeFolks, waited in front of the house. Only one of the promised five volunteers showed. Hodler greeted Janowski by name but offered him a name tag anyway. She offered up the same release waiver that had been signed by thousands of volunteers over the years.
Janowski exchanged brief introductions with the other six staff members in the Spanish-tiled kitchen. Through the sliding glass doors in what would have been the backyard of the house sat 500 trees lined up in rows. Two hitch trailers and a 26-foot super mover U-HAUL awaited loading.
Becky Woodward, the Tree Procurement and Distribution coordinator, motioned toward the two green wagons and a wheelbarrow.
“Load this. Wheel them over. Repeat,” she said.
Anne Saythongkham and Katherine Brown, Tree Procurement and Distribution assistants, joined Janowski. Six trees squeezed into one wagon and a seventh straddled atop two pots.
The first to be loaded were the Asian persimmons. They hardly resemble trees, especially compared to the burr oaks to which they were next. No leaves hung from these foreign fruit-bearers, and it looked as though someone merely jammed a small branch into the pot and called it a tree. Twenty were haphazardly placed in the bed of a blue Ram 1500 and hauled to a location different from where the rest of the trees would be taken.
Chinquapin oaks arched to accommodate the small trailer doorway. The Texas everbearing figs were next. Woodward requested 22. Forty Mexican buckeyes, the shortest of them all, followed the figs. Brown realized many of the buckeyes were missing labels. Tagging became the next priority.
“Alright, I think we’re making a dent.”
Austin saw its third below 45-degree morning of the fall. By midday, the sun was in full force, raising the temperature more than 20 degrees. Janowski shed his outer layer.
“It’s a good day to be outside,” he said.
Twenty pomegranate parfiankas piled in the first trailer. The ones discovered with fire ants watched from their row. They will see their time once the cooler weather forces the ants to either vacate the pot or die.
October through March is peak tree planting season in Texas. Spring, in which national Arbor Day is celebrated, leaves little time for roots to establish before the harsh, Texas summers.
TreeFolks plants 20,000 saplings a year and adopts out 4,800 trees to Austin residents during the fall and winter months. Three hundred trees were pre-registered for adoption at Saturday’s event and the other 200 would be given away to walk-ups.
The non-profit’s original incorporation papers from 1989 hang on the headquarter fridge under a magnet. The three Austinite founders envisioned an organization spear-headed by volunteers who were motivated to address global warming and deforestation locally.
Since inception, TreeFolks has planted three million trees all over Austin and the surrounding areas. The 2011 fires in Bastrop sparked the beginnings of a reforestation program still in effect today. Fifty-thousand trees were planted along river borders after the 2015 flooding in Hays County.
The backbone of TreeFolks is volunteer work. TreeFolks enlisted 1,357 volunteers for a total of 4,086 hours in the 2019-2020 planting season. COVID-19 halted all volunteer work in 2020-2021. The hours given by Janowski and those working the adoption event were some of the first in a year.
The trailer doors locked into place. The first unit was hauled to the other side of the house, making room for the other two trailers. Arroyo sweetwoods kicked off the next wave of work. Nineteen Montezuma cypresses followed. The trees that occupied the remaining trailer spaces were cedar elms, yaupon hollies, retamas, loquats and Anacacho orchids.
“They weren’t lying about a workout, were they?” Janowski asked.
The finishing of the tree loading gave a well-deserved break. The group sat in the distanced chairs outside.
Janowski thought of his father who received a tree years ago from the very organization to which he was now donating his time. This was his first contact with TreeFolks. Janowski’s love of trees stemmed from his father, a long retired high-school chemistry teacher.
He reminisced about the differences from when he was younger. Janowski remembered celebrating Arbor Day when he was in elementary school. He recalled each kid being given a tree seedling to take home.
“You don’t see that anymore,” he said.
Arbor Day may no longer be celebrated in the way it once was, but organizations like TreeFolks continue to grow an important message. By planting, gifting and adopting trees, Austin residents rally behind a common goal: making their community a better place.
“It just seems like a good thing to do,” Janowski said.