TAKING ROOT: VETERANS FOR TREES

Veterans for Trees, a non-profit organization based in Frazier Park, Calif., held its first tree planting event Saturday, March 13, 2010. Organizers hope their idea will sprout nationwide.


The idea is simple: Plant a tree for every U.S. veteran.

That could mean millions of trees will be planted and millions of veterans will be honored. The plantings are good for the environment and good for the soul.

Eleven small trees – blue spruces, autumn blaze maples and quaking aspens – were planted during a ceremony Saturday in Kern County’s Frazier Mountain Park. The plantings took place near the Brian Cody Prosser Veterans Memorial. The 28-year-old Prosser, who was well-known in the mountain community, was one of the first American soldiers killed in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Prosser was killed Dec. 5, 2001 by friendly fire.

Veterans for Trees is being spearheaded by Richard J.C. Sheffield, a retired U.S. Air Force technical sergeant, who is a licensed landscape and tree contractor. Sheffield and his wife, Tammy, own Antioch Nursery, Landscape and Tree Service in Lake of the Woods, a mountain community west of Frazier Park.

Veterans for Trees is headquartered in Frazier Park on about 15 acres of established incense cedar, redwood, gigantium, white fir, scotch pine and blue spruce trees. The property was formerly a Christmas tree farm.

In addition to growing larger-sized trees for the Veterans for Trees National Memorial Tree Planting Program, the headquarters property will be used to grow hundreds of thousands of jeffrey pine and pinion pine seedlings for planting in the Veterans for Trees California Wildfire Restoration Program.

According to the organization’s website, these seedlings will assist the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service, California Department of Forestry and National Park Service in reforestation efforts.

Sheffield told The Los Angeles Times that he plans to ask wholesale nurseries and retailers nationwide to offer veteran trees, which will have their trunks wrapped in red, white and blue, and will carry a tag containing information about the program. From each sale, $1 will go to Veterans for Trees to operate the tax-exempt, 501 (c)(3) organization.

“It’s a win-win for veterans and for the environment,” Sheffield told The Times.

For more information about the group and how you can honor veterans by planting a tree, go to www.veteransfortrees.org/

Dianne Hardisty
Bakersfield, Calif.
www.svs2help.com/