If you looked down on Charlottesville, 20 years ago, half the land was shaded by trees. Today, 12 neighborhoods have a tree canopy smaller than 40% and in three parts of town it’s fallen below 25%.
The 10th and Page neighborhood, for example, sits not far from the leafy lawns of UVA. The lots are small, the wood-frame houses modest and many of the original trees are gone. 69-year-old James Bryant says development, insects, age and disease took their toll.
“Storms came. Trees fell, and so this is what you have now, but when I first moved here there was a lot of shade.”
The loss of trees propelled 10th and Page to an unhappy title – the city’s hottest neighborhood, and its residents are paying the price according to one concerned citizen – Roxanne White.
“The fire department looked at health consequences, and we know that 10th and Page has the highest rate of heart attacks, heat strokes and the second rate of asthma.”
She knew things could get worse as the planet grew warmer, so she got together with Peggy Van Yares – a woman who loves trees and married into a family of arborists.
“My father-in-law owned the Van Yares Tree Company," she says. "His father owned it. Then my husband bought it. Now my children own it, so it’s been in the family for over 100 years.”
They worked with the city’s tree commission, City of Promise, the Nature Conservancy and Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards to create an educational program and they stopped by a local school with two different playgrounds.
“There’s one playground for the older kids," White explains. "It has these beautiful old trees. They must be hundred-year-old trees, so they provide a wonderful canopy for the kids to play under, and then there is a second playground that’s for the smaller kids, and that has absolutely no trees on it, so we measured the temperature – a 20-degree difference. The one with the shade was 82 degrees. The other one, without shade, was 102 degrees.”
Armed with that and other statistics, they applied for a won a $20,000 grant from the Nature Conservancy. Then, they went door to door in the 10th and Page neighborhood, offering free trees to residents. Assisting with the sell – local students like Musahar Ali.
“It’s an amazing idea," he says. "It’s hassle-free. They don’t have to do anything. We plant it, and they just water it once a week."
And the kids do more than talk.
“I actually get down and dig – the fun part," the 15-year-old says.
In their first year, the organization found 40 takers. Peggy Van Yares says the trees come with instructions and free follow-up care.
“We will go around for two years after the trees are planted, make sure they’re alive, do a little pruning, make sure they’re mulched, so we don’t just plant a tree and forget it. We’re going to make sure – at least for two years – that they’re going to have a really good start.”
Now, they’re gearing up for a second season and a new neighborhood – Rose Hill – where they’ll visit residents in September and plant in November. They hope to give away 50 trees, and White says they plan to expand the enterprise.
"We did a study that said if we wanted to get the tree canopy back up to even 45% -- I mean it was 50%," White recalls. "If we want to get it up to 45% + we’re going to have to plant 3,700 trees a year!"
Of course, mature trees provide more shade and absorb more carbon dioxide, so the organization – known as ReLeaf– is also starting a fund to help maintain old, established trees in low-income neighborhoods.
