Volunteers Team Up to Plant 'Wishes' Along York Boulevard

Community members from various local organizations spent Saturday enhancing Highland Park by digging holes and planting trees and wishes along York Boulevard.

The Urban Forest Collaborative, Plant a Wish, TreePeople, the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Boy Scout Troop 199, along with numerous others from as near as Eagle Rock and Silver Lake to as far as the Westside were among those to lend a helping hand.

“There’s a lot of different things that’s important about this event,” said HHPNC President Chris Smith. “One is making the street much more beautiful and shaded, but at the same time, environmentally, it’s good to have trees around. It really does beautify York Boulevard.”

According to HHPNC treasurer Mark Reback, who is also a tree supervisor and volunteer for TreePeople, the council contributed $3,600 to the Urban Forest Collaborative to assist with the costs of planting trees.

“We’re putting up about 25 trees today, which is nice, but we like to bring out the community too and get everyone involved in taking pride in the community," Reback said. (In March, TreePeople also provided support for another crucial volunteer effort—a tree-planting drive in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Eagle Rock’s incorporation as a city, before it became a part of Los Angeles in 1923.)

"Plant a Wish," a tree-planting documentary project, filmed the placing of "wishes" into one of the treewells being planted on York. Plant a Wish has planted trees in 41 states throughout the United States—and Highland Park was selected as the final stop on its second tour. It’s also the only planting that will take place in California.

“We totally love Highland Park. We know it needs more trees and we know what a great community is here,” said former Highland Park resident and Plant a Wish Co-Founder Sara Tekula. “We talked to Jane [Tsong], who is the Urban Forest Collaborative representative from this neighborhood, and bugged her until she said, ‘sure, come join us.’”

There is, however, one major difference between the trees that were planted by Plant a Wish and the rest of the trees that were planted throughout the day.

“For our project we only plant native trees and we have a special reason for that,” Tekula said. “A native tree brings a sense of place to a community, if you live in a place where it’s all imported trees, you’re not connecting to the indigenous culture of the place.”

“We celebrate indigenous culture through food, dance and language, but it’s also nature that is a big part of that. We feel that by planting a native tree, we’re going to acquaint the neighborhood with trees that belong here and have a long history here.”

The Plant a Wish trees are also marked by GPS and have the written hopes and wishes of community members buried beneath them. Highland Park resident Roberto Roque decided to join the tree planting event after attending a HHPNC meeting.

“Jane was talking about this event and I live in the neighborhood, so this a good way for me to get involved,” Roque said. “I wish more young people and people that live in this community would get involved with projects like this. I’m excited to be here.”

Veronica Salazar and her family stumbled upon the event while they were out and about on Saturday morning. “I have a 10-year-old daughter and I want her to start doing work like these kids are doing,” Salazar said. “I didn’t know about the organization [Tree People], but now I do and I think it’s a great opportunity for the youth.”

Salazar’s husband, Alonzo Hernandez, was so motivated by what he saw that he picked up a shovel and started breaking up dirt where a tree was to be planted.

“It’s a great thing that they are planting trees, it’s going to give us oxygen and make the community pretty,” Salazar said. “If the community is beautiful, people will think twice about destroying it—that’s why I grabbed a shovel.” Added Hernandez: “I thought I might as well dig in and create a new future for my kid.”