Economic Recovery Grant Helps Create Green Jobs and Healthy Communities in Los Angeles

Photograph of youth with shovels digging earth on a concrete sidewalk in front of a building.

LA Conservation Corps youth plant trees at the Foshay Learning Center.

Photograph of four people, three with shovels, planting a tree in an urban area.

LA Conservation Corps participants planting trees.

As the final few months of tree planting and maintenance projects, supported by the US Forest Service under a $6 million ARRA grant, come to a close in California, four Los Angeles-based grantees joined together recently to celebrate the positive impacts in creating green jobs, economic stimulus, and healthy communities in Los Angeles.

Working with California ReLeaf — the statewide urban forestry nonprofit charged with administering these Forest Service ARRA grants, the Hollywood/LA Beautification Team (HBT), Koreatown Youth & Community Center (KYCC), Los Angeles Conservation Corps (LACC), and Northeast Trees (NET) gathered as a single voice in Los Angeles at the Foshay Learning Center to collaboratively plant 18 trees around the school's perimeter.

This will soon provide increased canopy cover, noise abatement and scenic beautification for this facility and its 2,000 students. The planting was completed through a combination of student volunteers from the Foshay Environmental Club, at-risk youth employed by the LACC, and staff from the other three organizations.

Foshay Learning Center Principal Yvonne Garrison Edwards attended the event, noting "We had one tree. But now we'll have many beautiful trees that will grow up and down the sidewalk."

Important for the Community

Each ARRA grantee also offered comments on what the grant has meant to the communities they serve. LACC's Senior Program Manager Robert Skillman observed that, "The ARRA funds gave us the ability to put a group of people to work that, in LA, have about a 50 percent unemployment rate. It has been a fantastic program, and has allowed us to plant 1,000 trees."

Combined, these four groups received $1.6 million in US Forest Service ARRA funding, have created or retained more than 65 jobs in the Los Angeles area, and provided care and maintenance to more than 21,000 trees since January, 2010.

California ReLeaf Executive Director Joe Liszewski concludes "We are very proud of what these groups have accomplished in Los Angeles. The collaborative spirit demonstrated at this joint tree planting, and their dedication to making these communities greener, healthier places to live, work and play is a focal point of the ARRA funding.Their success is a reflection of the sound investment made by the Forest Service in California for job creation and retention through urban forestry."