It’s been a while… The tree planting was awesome, but exhausting. I needed a break. Here’s a picture of how the trees look so far.
When we planted them, they just looked like small twigs– Charlie Brown Trees, but that was back in January. Finally, at the beginning of April, you can see some GREEN. Yay! It’s hard to capture in a photo the full scale of all that we planted, but there are trees along the front and all the way down the block on both sides of the street.
Here’s some photos from the event as the trees were going in:
That’s me, digging. It was a lot of fun, but hard work and I was tired and sore the next day. Totally worth it, though!!
There’s some awesome volunteers. It was amazing to see people helping me make this dream come true.
This was when the folks from The Los Angeles Conservation Corps were giving the volunteers a tutorial on how to plant the trees. It took at least 5 people per tree. We had to dig the hole– it had to be DEEP, too! Then we had to place the tree in the correct position and remove the box, then shake the roots loose, install it and then shovel the dirt back in to cover it. It doesn’t sound that hard, but it was quite a workout!
This was one of the “teams” assigned to install one tree. In the center in the purple is my next door neighbor Wanda and in the white beside her is another neighbor. The little boy is Jack, the son of my grad school friend, Kate.
That’s Teague Weybright battling the ground with a pick axe. He was one of the people that encouraged me to find places in the neighborhood to plant the trees. He works for The Los Angeles Conservation Corps and I’d worked with him on my previous beautification project on my street. I’m standing there speaking to a dear friend, Monique Matthews. She’s been so supportive of my tree planting efforts. And to our left in the gray sweatshirt is another friend, Ericka Butler and a little farther left, in the black is Heather Hamilton, whom I’ve been friends with since the late 80s. It was so fun to have my girlz there!
I couldn’t believe that my friend Nicole wore a skirt to plant trees! hahaha! She worked hard, though! And in the white with her is another Nicole, my neighbor, Nicole Burns-Henderson.
Michael Espinosa took this photo of me. He was on the same planting “team” as I was.
That’s Michael on the far right. He oversees the City of Los Angeles Community Beautification Grant. He was the one who introduced me to Lisa Sarno, of the Million Trees LA Initiative. Between me and Michael is Bruce Saito, executive director of The Los Angeles Conservation Corps.
That’s author Leonard Chang. He was on my team, too. And he was so helpful, not only with the planting, but he took lots of photos for me.
This picture makes me laugh. I think I look like one of the Seven Dwarfs. Zipadeedodazipadee-ay. My oh my what a wonderful day…
That’s Teague again. Though the tree planting is a bit hard, it’s really enjoyable, too, and it makes you feel good to do it. There were lots and lots of smiles that day.
I’m talking to the lovely Jill Tarlow. She and I go WAAAAAAY back. I won’t admit how long, but we met when we were 16 years old, back in New York City. You always hear people say “life is short,” but reuniting with old friends makes me feel that life is actually long! It was so kind of her to help out and I appreciated it very much.
Look at the little cub scout! Adorable. A troop came out to volunteer. So sweet.
In addition to the Scouts there were also volunteers from Ralphs, Screen Gems, The Neighborhood Council, Firemen and lots and lots of my facebook friends.
I’m told there were over 100 volunteers. Pretty cool!
That’s Arlene and David Nelson and their cute daughter Sophie.
Bernard Parks gave me a Certificate of Appreciation. I received one from the Mayor, too, but the Mayor didn’t show up. Councilman Parks told me I was “vertically challenged.” Okay, I’m not THAT short, he’s just super tall! I pestered his office repeatedly to get him to attend. He mentioned something like, “Don’t say no to Toni Ann Johnson, cause she’ll never leave you alone.” I guess that’s true. That’s how we got this day to happen– I wouldn’t take NO for an answer.
It was fun thanking the volunteers, but I don’t know what I said or if I made any sense.
This Jerkin’ crew entertained the volunteers early in the morning. Don’t know what “Jerkin’” is? Betta ask somebody! It’s taking over the world! The crew is called “Kream Kidz” and the little boy with the blue hair is named Freshman. All the kids were friendly and gracious as they could be. The were also smart, socially and environmentally conscious and incredibly eloquent when they spoke to the crowd.
Impressive, talented and poised young men.
That is the dapper and debonair Shariff Hasan, Godfather of Jerkin’. He arranged for Kream Kidz to be with us that day and he was the one that explained to me that the Jerkin’ movement has an interest in protecting the environment.
That’s the spectacularly brilliant Lisa Sarno. Many thanks to her! Not only did she get us the 20 trees that day, she had MORE trees installed around the corner on Western. I’ll post some photos of those in the coming weeks.
A lush green South LA (my dream) is slowly coming true!!
Green is good. I’ll update with more photos as the trees grow in. Thanks for stopping by!
xo