by Kathryn Cross
On October 26, Tree Musketeers members, ranging from ages 10 to 18 will be hosting their very first Make a Difference Day, a day to celebrate fun, the convivial South Bay community, and helping the environment, one tree at a time.
Tree Musketeers, the world’s first known youth-lead environmental organization, is run by its eight youth managers, Lina McDermott, Talia and Raquel Gerard, Julian and Hannah Poyourow, Sam Cano, Kurt Frerichs, and Blake Parker. These youth managers organize activities and events that plant trees to help replenish the Earth’s greenery and the environment’s oxygen supply.
Within the past month, Tree Musketeers youth leaders have been planning one of their most extravagant tree-centric events yet: Make a Difference Day.
Make a Difference Day hopes to gather over 100 volunteers from across Los Angeles to care for some of the 1,800 local trees that the Musketeers currently care for – particularly portions of the 500 “Trees to the Sea” youth volunteers have planted along the median of Imperial Highway.
“Taking care of these trees is just as important as planting new ones, because trees help the environment the most when they reach maturity,” youth manager Lina McDermott told the City Council at a presentation this week. “When they become mature, each tree will generate $163,000 worth of oxygen, air pollution control, water recycling, and soil erosion prevention! Each of them will also take in 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide over 50 years.”
The day will feature a friendly clean-up competition between volunteers – with teams led by City Councilmember Marie Fellhauer, School Board member Robin Funk, and Lily Craig of Chevron – featuring a prize for those that clean up the most. There will also be other games and a community picnic featuring a grilled cheese food truck.
“We really want this to be an entertaining day for our community,” said Hannah Poyourow, who alongside Parker and Frerichs is organizing the day’s entertainment.
“It’s about the community coming together to have fun and take ownership over some of our best allies against global warming: our local trees!” Julian Poyourow added. .
The day is likely to be a marvelous one because of the work put in by every member of the team. Each week, the youth leaders have been meeting at Tree Musketeers’s Leadership Center in El Segundo. Outside of these meetings, Lina McDermott and Raquel Gerard have been spreading word of the event through social media and other forms of advertisement. James Sanchez, the organization’s Community Forester, along with managers Talia Gerard and Sam Cano are planning the tree care part of the event. Julian Poyourow, the Tree Musketeers’s current president, will supervise and coordinate the entire event.
If the energy put into planning the event is any indication, Make a Difference Day will be a success. Tree Musketeers hope that they and their volunteers, and the South Bay community as a whole, truly will make a vast impact on the community – one tree at a time.
“This event is open to all,” said McDermott, who at 15 has already been a youth manager four years. “So we just want as many people as possible to join us.”
Make a Difference Day will be on October 26th and go from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. along Imperial Highway between Main Street and Hillcrest Street in El Segundo. For more information, contact Perrine Vaillant, the Outreach Manager at (310) 322-0263 and p4p@treemusketeers.org or visit Tree Musketeers’s website, www. treemusketeers.org.
