Students and others planting trees, cultivating futures
With his red hood pulled over his head and gloves on his hands, Garrett Gerber counteracted the chill by picking up a shovel and joining work on a hole that would soon welcome a new oak tree.
'It's good when you get to be outside,' he said.
Gerber and classmates Rhonda Husband and Clarissa Mook, along with life skills paraprofessional Brenda Elliott, joined the city's liaison to the Shade Tree Commission, Alice Sjolander; Shade Tree Commission member Danuta Majchrowicz; and Scott Sjolander, Penn State Extension urban and community forester, to plant five trees in the recently renovated Huidekoper Park. The trees — a mix of swamp white oaks and red maples — are part of a group of 35 trees planted by volunteers over the past 10 days at three city parks and two locations in the city's Fifth Ward thanks to $11,000 in funding from two programs operated by nonprofit TreePennsylvania, the Bare Root Tree grant program and PA's Environmental Justice Forests grant program.
Unlike Gerber, Husband had previous experience with tree planting, having participated in a similar event the previous weekend at the Columbia Avenue community orchard, where about a dozen trees were installed.
'You get a workout — you get muscles from it,' Husband said.
Mook, a self-described 'farm girl,' was familiar with similar work as well.
'I love it, coming out and helping and planting and weeding and stuff,' she said. 'I just like being outside and meeting new people and learning different things.'
All three of the students are 21 and will soon complete the life skills transitional program operated by Northwest Tri-County Intermediate Unit 5. The program allows life skills students to continue in school after the year they turn 18, gaining additional experience, including time spent working at a variety of local businesses and organizations ranging from assisted living facilities to preschools, fast food and ice cream shops to hotels.
After completing the program, Gerber will attend Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, while Husband is eager to begin work at Juniper Village, a place she has already become familiar with through the transitional program.
'I've been wanting to work ever since,' she said. 'I'm very excited I'm finally going to get a chance to actually work outside of school.'
The effort at Huidekoper and other city locations came as similar work was being performed in 50 communities across the state. More than 1,200 young trees were distributed for planting, according to Jessica Cavey, program director of Tree Pennsylvania, a private nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing tree canopy across the commonwealth through grant and scholarship programs.
Alice Sjolander, who worked on the grant that funded the tree plantings, said another 35 trees will be planted in the fall, primarily along South Main Street and nearby on several cross streets. Where the spring plantings were mostly in parks or similar areas, the fall plantings will be in more urban locations, but all of the trees are relatively mature at 10 feet in height or more.
'These trees will make a big difference in the community pretty quickly,' she said.
Sjolander said it remained to be seen if funding for the fall trees remained available. 'They squeaked this one in,' she said, referring to the grant support obtained by TreePennsylvania.
The statewide tree planting is a collaborative effort of TreePennsylvania and in collaboration with the state's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Penn State Extension and the U.S. Forest Service. Ultimately, however, the funding comes from the federal partner — the Forest Service.
Since the beginning of the second Trump administration earlier this year, environmental justice programs such as the one providing a portion of the funding for the Meadville tree plantings, have come under consistent fire. Earlier this month, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin labeled environmental justice programs as 'scams' and said he had canceled more than $22 billion in environmental justice and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) grants and contracts.
Jessica Cavey, TreePennsylvania program director, said the grant supporting the work was awarded in 2024 and expressed confidence that funding for the fall plantings remained secure.
'Meadville will receive the other half of their trees,' she said. 'However, if we applied for this funding now in anticipation of a 2026 grant, I would be very cautious of anticipating that grant being accepted because it mentions environmental justice, it mentions disadvantaged communities, it mentions climate change — those kinds of things — and those words right now are huge red flags for this administration, unfortunately.'
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