Cooperative Effort Plants 'Wishes' Along York Blvd.

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,  Tree People, the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, Boy Scout Troop 199, along with numerous others 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 Tree People, 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.

Also on hand were members of the native tree planting organization, Plant A Wish, who captured the tree planting on video for an ongoing documentary project.

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.

“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.’”

Tsong said she welcomed Plant A Wish's documenting of the day.

"Because their film is about native trees, we had them use our native trees for their film," Tsong said. "Their presence was really great and brought a really wonderful dimension to the day."

Tekula said planting native trees was an important step in recognizing native culture in the development of neighborhood landscapes.

“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. 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 said.

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,” Hernandez said. “If the community is beautiful, people will think twice about destroying it. That’s why I grabbed a shovel.”

Hernandez said, “I thought I might as well dig in and create a new future for my kid.”