Rectifying an unequally distributed city tree canopy
takes funding—and collaboration, planning, and
respect between community and institutional part-
ners. Schenectady, New York presents a case
study of how these partners can work together to
begin addressing differences in tree canopy.
ReTree Schenectady (ReTree), led by Betsy Henry since
1997, has worked with community, city, and institutional
partners to plant over 4,000 trees in the last 25 years.
ReTree primarily focuses on street tree plantings by gath-
ering planting requests from property owners; selecting,
ordering, and coordinating delivery of trees; recruiting
volunteers and leading tree plantings; working with prop-
erty owners to maintain newly planted trees; and putting
on young tree care workshops. Over the years, Henry
noted that most street tree planting requests came from
neighborhoods that already had relatively healthy tree
canopies. In following this request pattern, ReTree's
street tree planting program inadvertently continued
planting in areas of the city with higher tree canopy.
To address this issue, ReTree had tried reaching out to
neighborhood associations and partner organizations
in lower canopy areas. Several successful plantings
were done in collaboration with Better Neighborhoods
Incorporated; however, with the majority of proper-
ties being rental rather than owner-occupied, ReTree
encountered challenges with getting permission to
plant, even if renters were interested. When ReTree
reached out to property owners on behalf of renters,
they were met with apathy, absence, or anger at
having to potentially perform more maintenance.
In the spring of 2021, National Grid awarded grants to
the City and County of Schenectady to support tree
planting in response to a rare derecho thunderstorm
event in October 2020 that damaged many trees. Nick
Klemczak of the Schenectady County Soil and Water
Conservation District served as administrator of the
National Grid grant to the County; he reached out to
Henry for support on planting trees in the City. Henry
turned to ReTree volunteer Mary Moore Wallinger
and they brainstormed how to encourage more
tree planting in areas with lower canopy. Wallinger,
a landscape architect at LandArt Studio, had been
impressed with the work of Kenneth Brooks and his
company, Ground Up Landscaping, on prior projects.
Schenectady teens gear up to prune young
trees in the City's Central Park.
Brooks had established community, education, and
employment program credentials through Community
Fathers, a local nonprofit that since 2009 has been
providing job training, support groups, and other
programs that encourage fathers to take an active
role in their children's lives. At Community Fathers,
Brooks developed Ground Up Landscaping as part
of the OIOI program, which stands for Occupations
Instead of Incarceration. He was inspired to start this
program to stress to his community how consistent
employment had saved him from the prison system.
Within a month, a collaborative team convened
and laid the groundwork for planting 50 trees in
Hamilton Hill and Mont Pleasant, two neighborhoods
in Schenectady with lower tree canopy coverage.
The collaboration included people from the City
of Schenectady (Department of Development and
Office of General Services), the Schenectady County
Job Training Agency (SJTA), the Schenectady Soil
and Water Conservation District (SCWCD), ReTree
Schenectady, Community Fathers, and LandArt
Studio. Fundamental to the program was the idea that
Community Fathers would lead the program, neighbor-
hood youth would do the outreach and planting, and
both leaders and youth would be paid a fair wage. >>
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