After hearing about our Neighborwoods community planting event in the Garfield Park neighborhood, Shea Abbgy reached out to see if we could help plant more trees in Garfield Park proper to enhance the disc golf course experience.
Shea, who runs Great Lakes Disc, had previously coordinated a group of disc golfers to help plant trees in the park in 2020 with the goal of increasing the tree canopy around and throughout the disc golf course. However, some of those trees from 2020 did not make it, and he really wanted to replace them and to recruit disc golfers to help plant the new trees. Shea truly values trees being incorporated into disc golf courses. His knowledge of course design and enthusiasm to plant trees that intentionally improve the course experience were invaluable.
In addition to Shea, Dr. Jordyn Stoll—an Environmental Science professor at GVSU, avid disc golfer, and Garfield Park neighbor—was also interested in a tree planting project in the park. Dr. Stoll offered to coordinate post-planting tree care to ensure the trees planted can be watered. Dr. Stoll also sees immense value in connecting her students with real world opportunities to learn environmental science and has already started organizing weekly watering shifts for next summer that will be completed before the weekly disc golf league events!
Collaboration Makes a Tree Planting Possible
After an initial meeting with Shea and Dr. Stoll, we invited them to join up with our newly-established Friends of Garfield Park, one of our five pilot Park Stewardship Program pilot sites. This was really cool since it is a great example of how specific park user groups can be involved in our Park Stewardship Program work to grow the impact! Katy Hoffman, who leads the Garfield Park Neighborhood Association has been an incredible help in establishing the Friends of Garfield Park committee, and was in full support of planting more trees with the disc golfers.
After initial planning and coordination with the City, we landed on a Halloween tree planting event that would include members of the Friends of Garfield Park, members of the disc golf community, and general volunteers who signed up to help.
17 Volunteers Come Together to Plant Trees
We started the day with cider, donuts, coffee, and homemade pumpkin cake. Some seasoned tree planters and conservation volunteers showed up to the event, as well as several volunteers who were planting for the first time. It was an excellent intersection of disc golfers and folks who were looking for a volunteer activity.
There were a variety of Halloween costumes on hand, adding to the overall whimsy of the event, and we were able to get all of the trees planted successfully. We’re so grateful to the disc golf community who really showed up to support the planting! They have asked for the event to become an annual event going forward. We were lucky to have amazing weather making it a wonderful event all around.
Community Makes Great Things Possible!
We are really excited to support more projects like this in more parks. Bringing multiple different groups of people together under a common cause in a park they all love is the height of success in our Park Programs. The true success of this project is not getting the trees in the ground, it is bringing people together to activate the park and, most importantly, creating a plan for ongoing stewardship to maintain the trees for years to come–which in this case, does not happen without Shea, Dr. Stoll, and the Garfield Park Neighborhood Association.
Want to see more trees planted in your favorite park? Contact our forestry team or give us a call at (616) 288-7209.
