Public Works Celebrates Arbor Day 2024 by Planting 100 New Street Trees and Hosting Family-Fun Fair

For Immediate Release: March 9, 2024
Contact: Rachel Gordon, San Francisco Public Works, rachel.gordon@sfdpw.org
 

PHOTOS FROM THE EVENT
 

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC WORKS CELEBRATES ARBOR DAY 2024 BY PLANTING 100 NEW STREETS TREES AND HOSTING FAMILY-FUN FAIR 

San Francisco, CA – In celebration of Arbor Day 2024, Public Works urban forestry crews worked alongside community volunteers today to plant 100 young street trees in the Tenderloin, NoPa and Hayes Valley. 

Public Works also hosted its annual Arbor Day Fair, a free festival featuring family-fun activities, including planter box building and planting, bucket truck rides, face painting, a friendly herd of grazing goats, arts and crafts, games and more! 

Mayor London Breed, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and Supervisor Dean Preston helped kick off the day at New Traditions Elementary School, 2050 Hayes St., before work teams headed out to the neighborhood project sites to plant trees. 

The Arbor Day Fair, located on the New Traditions school blacktop, drew enthusiastic visitors, including many families, throughout the morning. 

“Public Works celebrates the importance of trees year-round in the work we do every day planting and caring for San Francisco’s 125,000-plus street trees,” said Public Works Director Carla Short, a certified arborist by training. “But Arbor Day gives us the added opportunity to put a spotlight on the many benefits of trees and to celebrate with our community partners as we work together to grow our urban forest.” 

The tree-planting workday brought out 200 volunteers, a mix of neighbors, community groups, students, nonprofits and merchants. Together with Public Works staff, they planted 13 different species of trees, among them Brisbane Box, iron wood and Southern magnolia. 

The trees planted on Arbor Day had been growing at the new Public Works Street Tree Nursery in the South of Market, which opened in November. The nursery, in combination with a $12 million federal grant awarded to Public Works last fall to plant and maintain street trees, helps combat climate change and create green jobs and buoys the department’s efforts to grow the urban forest in neighborhoods with the lowest tree canopy, such as the Tenderloin, Bayview and South of Market. 

Public Works oversees San Francisco’s 125,000-plus street trees and maintains them under StreetTreeSF, a program – approved with overwhelming voter support in 2016 – that sets aside $19 million a year for tree maintenance. The department also is making advances to grow the City’s urban forest, planting new trees throughout the year. 

The annual Arbor Day event is the single biggest tree-planting initiative of the year, with a goal to not only green neighborhoods but to raise awareness about the important benefits that trees bring to our communities – from cleaning the air, reducing stormwater runoff and producing oxygen to providing habitat for wildlife, beautifying neighborhoods and boosting kids’ capacity to learn. 

More information on Public Works’ efforts can be found at sfpublicworks.org/trees.