News Release Archive

Reclamation Joins Forest Service in Hosting “Let’s Move Outside” Youth Tree Planting Event

Media Contact: Pete Lucero, MP Region Public Affairs Officer, 916-978-5100, 04/05/2013 12:24
U.S. Forest Service: Kathleen Jordan, 530-941-3551, kajordan@fs.fed.us

For Release: April 05, 2013

REDDING, Calif. - The Bureau of Reclamation will join forces with the U.S. Forest Service to help plant tree seedlings in a fire-damaged area within the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. This year’s Scouting forTrees event will take place Saturday, April 6, from   9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Bear Fire area, adjacent to Lower Jones Valley Campground, northeast of Redding, Calif. Registration begins at 8:15 a.m.

The Scouting for Trees program started on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in the late 1940s. A community partnership was formed in 2004 to enhance the event by including Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and their families. In the last nine years, more than 3,000 Scouts, other youth volunteers and their families have planted more than 35,000 trees. Scouts and volunteers also take part in natural resource conservation education activities. These activities focus on tree growth, reforestation monitoring, plant identification, forestry, fire ecology, fire prevention, animal track identification, wildflowers, and soil and water conservation. The focus of the day is planting bare-root and container-grown tree seedlings to reforest fire-damaged areas. Each participant will receive a special appreciation card, a commemorative patch, an event T-shirt and a hot lunch.

"There is a real interest in connecting youth to their public lands," said Kathleen Jordan, coordinator for the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. "The kids get hands-on experience planting the seedlings as they learn the importance of this kind of effort. Scouts not only learn the proper way to plant and care for trees, but they learn to give their time to a project that requires faith in the future. These trees they just planted may very well live longer than they do. Everyone who participates becomes a better steward of our public lands and they feel a new sense of pride."

Reclamation is supporting the effort as part of President Barack Obama’s America’s Great Outdoorsinitiative (http://americasgreatoutdoors.gov) that seeks to empower Americans to share in the responsibility to conserve, restore and provide better access to our lands and waters, and leave a healthy and vibrant outdoor legacy for generations to come. Getting youth and their families outdoors, hiking and planting trees also follow First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Outsideinitiative which promotes outdoor physical activity for children and families (http://www.letsmove.gov). Let’s Move Outside encourages young people to connect with nature through outdoor activities that improve fitness and teach important lessons in stewardship and conservation.

Partners in this year’s event include the Forest Service; Reclamation; Youth Program Supporters of Shasta, Tehama and Trinity Counties; Rotary Club of Redding; Society of American Foresters; Shasta College Natural Resources Department; California Conservation Corps; the Boy Scouts of America; and the Girl Scouts of America.

For more information, please contact Kathleen Jordan, Shasta-Trinity National Forest, at 530-941-3551 or kajordan@fs.fed.us; or Sheri Harral, Bureau of Reclamation, at 530-276-2030 or sharral@usbr.gov.

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The Bureau of Reclamation is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior and is the nation's largest wholesale water supplier and second largest producer of hydroelectric power. Our facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation opportunities, and environmental benefits. Visit our website at https://www.usbr.gov and follow us on Twitter @USBR; Facebook @bureau.of.reclamation; LinkedIn @Bureau of Reclamation; Instagram @bureau_of_reclamation; and YouTube @reclamation.

Relevant Link:

Let’s Move Outside

America’s Great Outdoors