Volunteers

There are countless benefits to enhancing biodiversity. LEAF’s naturalization planting events assist in recreating diverse, sustainable and resilient urban forests. Through increasing plant diversity, LEAF protects public lands and urban forests for future generations, while helping connect people to their local environments and to each other. These events are crucial to creating and sustaining healthy environments.

A new year brings new volunteer opportunities to steward, connect with and learn about the urban forest. Our volunteers play a critical role in supporting our community programs and helping us improve the urban forest. As a result, we strive to ensure that every volunteer that participates with LEAF – no matter the role – has a meaningful, fulfilling and fun experience! To highlight some of our upcoming volunteer opportunities, we chatted with three LEAF volunteers to get a first-hand account of their adventures.

The first two years of a newly planted tree's life are crucial for its survival. That's why we hosted two volunteer stewardship events at recent naturalization planting sites in York Region this July. Our tree-rific team removed 54 bags of invasive plant species and mulched over 600 native trees and shrubs. In this blog, our new Stewardship Coordinator, Sarah Halonen, shares their first fieldwork experience!

Throughout 2020, our Community Programs team was tasked with adapting many of our programs and events to follow ever-evolving public health guidelines. Despite the many changes, we were able to continue to engage volunteers and community members with fun and informative programs aimed at protecting and enhancing the urban forest. Here are some of the year’s accomplishments.

Our Stewardship Coordinator, Brian Millward, had the pleasure of speaking with Lillian Natalizio about her experience with LEAF and her passion for the urban forest. From stewardship in our demonstration gardens to participating in community tree planting events, Lillian has participated in almost every volunteer program we offer since she joined our community in 2015! In total, she has donated over 350 hours of her time to protecting and enhancing the urban forest.