All of Us Are The Future of Tree Care

Community & Urban Forestry Alliance, CUFA's mission is to educate, elevate, and empower inner-city youth to become part of their neighborhood landscape, lead tree care activities, and help in native tree protection, recovery, and rediscovery. 

CUFA is not your typical tree services provider or tree advocacy group. Our mission is much broader than that. First, we understand the impact of environmental factors, community engagement, protecting the ecosystem, and the utter importance of increasing environmental literacy. With a declining tree canopy, we must increase the survival rates of mature and transplanted trees. Thousands of city trees die annually and ten times that are engulfed or under stress by invasive species, so the time to act is now. We cannot replace the broad benefits of a thirty-inch black walnut tree with a three-inch diameter replacement. Second, we believe trees are more meaningful than canopy coverage, stormwater management, or erosion control. Trees also have the remarkable ability to produce food and medicinal properties for humans adding in reducing or preventing some of the most common diseases. We believe all communities should have colorful and healthy trees on their streets and that starts with the basic knowledge of the trees currently there, their age, species, needs, tolerances, benefits, potential pests, and value. In all, this greatly improves a community's viability. 

To accomplish this task CUFA has chosen to educate and empower City youth to become the next generation of arborist, ecologist, entomologist, environmental engineers, foresters, scientist, plant pathologist, and policy makers. For many of us, the protection, recovery and re-discovery of native plants are about survival, not just for the trees but for generations to come. For centuries native plants have played a key role in the health and wealth of communities across the country and could once again provide those benefits that could only come from nature. With the effects of the pandemic still lingering around, many teens and trees are in clear and present danger, so now is an opportune time for communities to learn more about the place and powers of native plants and why it's critical that we plant, protect, and place a ring of safety around our teens and trees. 

So, whether you know a teen or tree in need of support or another chance at life, want to increase your tree native knowledge, use your yard to help reduce air-pollution, fight cancer and heart disease, or to reduce teen crime, drop-outs, pregnancy, and violence, don't hesitate to contact us. CUFA would appreciate the opportunity to connect our intern arborist to your yard. CUFA believes through genuine care, concern, compassion, exposure to an environmental education, we can improve the welfare across many different landscapes, foster hope, expand community relations, increase volunteerism, and lay the foundation for more positive and progressive community images. Will you join us in co-creating community solutions that address teens and native trees shared struggles? We hope so, because the end goal is to create environments that spawns perpetual cycles of productive, professional, and proficient teens caring for native trees and each other.