Their small hands, in garden gloves, work in concert as the late-morning sun intensifies over Pacific Palisades.
Tyler and Cora steady a western redbud sapling as Atticus holds up a bag of soil and Eliza shovels out the fragrant earth. Sarai Woodard, 17, here from EF Academy in Pasadena, guides the second- and fifth-graders as they transfer the native tree from a five- to a 15-gallon container: “We’re gonna put the dirt in … let’s pat it down now.”
Last year, the Palisades fire destroyed their elementary school, Seven Arrows. The charred campus is around the corner.
Soon there are 30 repotted toyon, California sycamore and western redbud trees forming a new nursery at the Aldersgate Retreat Center, where the blaze had lapped at the back of a chapel and blackened towering redwoods.
The effort is part of TREEAMS — trees and dreams — which aims to see local kids plant 5,000 trees in the next three to five years in scorched areas of Altadena, the Palisades and Malibu.
Students will tend to the roughly 2-year-old trees until they can be replanted in schools, parks and homes affected by the Palisades as well as the Eaton fire.
The vision was conceived by Jane Goodall, the late, famed chimpanzee expert, and Margarita Pagliai, who founded Seven Arrows and Little Dolphins Preschool in the Palisades.
Students in those places “have lived through something very difficult,” Pagliai said at the planting event on Tuesday. “Many are still hurting, many families are still rebuilding. TREEAMS gives students a way to act now, to give back and to help their communities heal with their own hands.”
‘She’s within us’
Goodall, a dedicated conservationist, was set to plant the first tree at the initial TREEAMS kickoff last October at EF Academy. Then just 15 minutes before the event began, organizers learned she had passed away.
“Instead, we planted it in her honor,” said Shawna Marino, vice president at EF, a private high school.
EF took in the kindergartners through sixth-grade students from Saint Mark’s, an Episcopal school, after it burned down in the Eaton fire.
She recalled telling 1,000 students “that their hero was not coming and, in fact, had passed away” as a “pretty big moment.”
Losing Goodall and the visibility she brought was a blow, but the students were eager to act.
Initially, the plan was to acquire trees and move them quickly to their new homes. But the TREEAMS team soon found many places weren’t ready for planting. In some instances, the soil was contaminated; in others, a home or structure was being rebuilt.
So they had to rethink their approach and came up with the idea of on-campus nurseries, Marino said. They kept their 5,000-tree goal and timeline intact.
There are pluses: Caring for the trees for one to two years provides valuable environmental science education, and small trees are cheaper and more likely to be donated, Marino said. UCLA and EcoRise, a nonprofit that integrates environmental education into schools, developed a curriculum for the effort.
Retooling took time. Last month, the first nursery launched at EF with 30 trees — coast live oaks and sycamores. They’re in talks with public and private schools to host nurseries on their campus and hope to line up more.
Dan Lambe, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation, a nonprofit focused on inspiring people to plant trees, hailed the project. His group is also helping reforest Altadena as well as fire-seared parts of the Angeles National Forest.
Nearly 9 in 10 Americans say trees and green spaces have a noticeable impact on their mental well-being, and an overwhelming majority agree that spending time in nature brings hope and optimism about the future, according to research supported by the foundation. For many, trees in their yard and local parks provide that green space.
“I’m thrilled to hear what they’re doing, so there are trees available when the time is right,” he said. “And then making sure those trees are planted the right way, in the right place and cared for, so that they do survive for decades and decades — it’s really important work.”
At the recent planting event, photos of Goodall amid trees and greenery were displayed on a table near the entrance. Her name was on the tip of many tongues.
“She was so powerful that she’s within us,” Treeams co-founder Pagliai said.
For yesterday, today and tomorrow
As students patted soil and staked trees for support, smoke from the wind-driven Sandy fire threatening Simi Valley billowed in the distance. It was one of several fires rampaging through Southern California.
There was a sense among students and educators that the work they were doing wasn’t just to rectify past catastrophes but to prepare for future ones.
Jackson Von, a sixth-grader at Seven Arrows Elementary, which has temporarily moved to a campus in Santa Monica, said he learned that many trees in his community are invasives, brought in by European settlers and not equipped to handle fire.
“So the more we plant native trees, the more we’ll be resistant to things like the events of 2025,” he told attendees. “It’s really hard to think about it, but we’re all thinking it.”
Some credit the oaks and redwoods at Aldersgate for saving the property from the Palisades fire. Next door, an empty lot marks where a beloved playhouse stood before flames destroyed it.
For many of the students, the fire followed the upheaval of the pandemic. Then there’s the fractured politics, Iran war and other difficult current events.
Planting a tree can offer a tangible way to help, and a sense of agency during challenging times, experts said.
Sarah Bang, director of public school partnerships for UCLA School of Education & Information Studies, who helped develop the curriculum for TREEAMS, noted that the students at the planting event had gone through trauma and that incidents like the Simi Valley fire re-triggers it.
“How amazing and timely and absolutely wonderful that they were able to come and actively participate in this healing,” she said.
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