National Volunteer Week: The Healing Power of Tree Planting

This week, to celebrate National Volunteer Week, we’d like to share with you some of our favorite stories from our Citizen Foresters. This story originally appeared in the November 2011 Leaflet.

This fall marks Citizen Forester (CF) Elizabeth Elliott’s return to planting with Casey Trees.

In December 2009, Elliott broke her arm and was forced to put off tree planting for a while. Elliott was on hand at the first planting of the fall 2011 Community Tree Planting season at The Catholic University of America.

“It was great fun,” she said. “There was the added benefit of loosening up my arm.”

Elliott spent her childhood in upstate New York and said the turning of the leaves was always one of her favorite times of year.

Elliott has been a longtime admirer of Betty Brown Casey, following her philanthropic efforts with the Washington National Opera. When she read about the founding of Casey Trees, Elliott was excited she could give back to the city where she lives.

“It became obvious that Casey Trees was an opportunity for me to directly contribute to the well-being of our city,” Elliott said, “to get outdoors and to increase my knowledge of trees and their place in the ecological web.”

After a while, Elliott wanted to get back outdoors and learn more about D.C.’s urban forest. She completed her CF training in fall 2006 and, soon after, fell in love with the many aspects of tree planting. Discovering new neighborhoods, forging friendships with other volunteers and physical activity are the things she has most enjoyed from the start. During a planting event in 2009, Elizabeth noticed the Lead CF was her sorority sister from college and the two have since reconnected.

“It’s a team effort,” she said of tree planting, “we’re all in this together and we’ve done our best to give these trees a good start.”

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