Planting Trees, Planting Hope
by Eric Diekhans
For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees
of the field shall clap their hands. Isaiah
55:12
A tree planting ministry seemed like an easy sell for Karen
Chakoian, pastor of First
Presbyterian Church in
Granville, Ohio. “Part of it is just their sheer beauty,” she says. “And part
of it is knowing the politics of congregations. It’s really hard to argue
against a tree.”
But 1,500 trees, in five years? That sounded like a
stretch, but it didn’t stop the congregation from enthusiastically supporting
Rev. Chakoian’s idea. The church already had an active Caring for Creation
group, and became an Earth Care Congregation in 2018. Dr. John Weigand a member of the church, also led a discussion series
in the Prism Sunday school class on climate change. Planting trees was the
perfect place to turn discussion into action, and the Prism group decided to
spearhead the effort. 1500 Trees for Life was born.
“I was a biology major many years ago,” says Rev.
Chakoian, “and I read about trees mitigating global warming through carbon
sequestration. We came up with this idea of planting trees as a congregation
with the hopes that it would spread far beyond us.”
Carbon sequestration is the long-term removal,
capture, or sequestration, of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to slow or
reverse atmospheric CO2 pollution, and to mitigate or reverse
climate change. According to the European Environment Agency, a typical
hardwood tree can absorb as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. This
means it will sequester approximately one ton of carbon dioxide by the
time it reaches 40 years old.
“We initially started with Session,” says Amanda Love, a Deacon at First Presbyterian.
“Then we expanded just within our church community, and really went strong. We
did a lot of our communicating via Zoom talks. We marketed the concept by
posting banners, emails, posters, postcards we would send out, and talking with
people. at our local farmers market. The greatest effort was at Christmas. We
created a large outdoor Advent-inspired lit tree installation. We gathered
safely once a week during Advent around the trees and lights to lift up our
church and community.”
Planting Begins
Planting a tree isn’t as simple as digging a hole in
the ground. It takes land, expertise, and donors. When 1500 Trees for Life
kicked off in the Fall of 2019, Mike Flood, a local horticulturist and co-owner
of Albyn’s
Nursery, offered to supply
trees at cost and handle the planting. An initial test planting of 25 trees
purchased by 1500 Trees, the Prism class, and First Presbyterian’s Session, was
scheduled for the original fall planting, with a full roll-out near Arbor Day.
There was great deal of discussion about price points for donors. It costs $150
to plant a
6-8’ tree and $200 for a
12-15’ tree. If an interested
donor can’t afford to buy a tree, friends and groups can chip in for one, or
donors can make smaller amounts to equal a tree. Donors were encouraged to buy
a tree in memory of a loved one, celebrate a high school graduate, honor a
co-worker about to retire, or for almost any other reason.
Those first 25 trees were planted at Granville’s
latest municipal building site. Donations and enthusiasm for the project
mushroomed in Granville and the surrounding county. First Presbyterian Church
was already well known because of their deep involvement in the community.
People were eager to offer suitable space. Trees were planted in parks,
cemeteries, on the grounds of a middle school, and along a bike and walking
trail.
“It’s
kind of like a ripple effect outside of the church, to Granville, to the next
town to the county,” says Amanda. “We just recently stretched out to Newark,
which is just to the east of us. There's a science history art museum there,
The Works, and they had a partnership with the Smithsonian for a habitat
exhibition.”
Choosing the right trees was also important. 1500
Trees plants tree stock that is native to the area, though what trees grow best
might change over the next century. “Seed stock could be Appalachian,” says
Amanda, “or it could span hundreds of miles south because it’s going to be a
lot warmer here in 100 years.”
Micro Forests
More recently, Carol Carpenter Apacki, a local environmentalist, spearhead
of their Caring for Creation group, Earth Care Congregation efforts, and a
Prism member, planted a new seed with the group. She suggested they create
micro forests, tiny, dense forests that recreate the layers of a natural
forest. “You start off with little shrubs, and little plants, and then you put
in smaller trees,” says Amanda. “And then those trees grow. And maybe some of
the lower plants die out. And then things start to grow up and they're more
densely packed. So you're getting a bigger bang for your buck. Right now we’re
dabbling in that and trying to see where that could go.”
When COVID slowed planting, the church decided to
forego the original five year timeline, but they’ve still set their sights on
the 1,500 goal. To date, over 270 trees have been planted.
“From a faith perspective, it was just phenomenal,”
says Rev. Chakoian.
The members of 1500 Trees are eager to share the knowledge
they’ve gained with other congregations, so the work of planting trees can
spread far beyond their little corner of Ohio. If you would like to tap into
their knowledge base, contact 1500 Trees for
Life.
Eric Diekhans is
a member of Lake View Presbyterian Church, a fiction author, and editor of Earth
News.
