Dear Neighbors I would like to update everyone about the progress we have made on getting street trees for our neighborhood. About 5 months ago I sent an email to the list asking for interest in street trees. I was overwhelmed by the response. I received over 100 requests and was unable to respond to them all individually. I was able to meet with a small group of volunteers and put in an application to TreeVitalize Pittsburgh (http://www.paconserve.org/216/treevitalize) for a fall planting of trees along Stanton Ave. between Negley and Highland avenues. I would like to put in an application for the spring to plant along N Highland Ave. between Stanton and the Park entrance. The deadline for the application is Sept. 4th. Once again I need your help with the following: 1. If you live on North Highland Ave and would like one or more street trees in your yard or your sidewalk, please respond to this email with your address so that I can drop a tree request form off at your house. The trees are free. The form requires only your address and signature. If you want more details about the program, or about the benefits of trees to you and our community, check out the TreeVitalize website. 2. I need 3-4 other people willing to spend some time organizing this. This will take a total of about 5 hours of your time. I can only put in this application if I get a few others to help with the work. For those of you who live in other parts of Highland Park and wonder what happened to your request, here are the issues: 1. I got requests from people on practically every street in the Neighborhood. 2. TreeVitalize will only deliver trees to one street at a time (for logistical reasons) 3. TreeVitalize prefers to put trees on main streets that don't have very many trees (this is why we started with Stanton Ave) 4. I hope to continue to put in applications every fall and spring, until we have all of Highland Park covered with trees, or TreeVitalize runs out or trees (whichever comes first) Thank you for your help Nancy Arnold Junk mail invades our privacy and clogs our mailboxes, it also claims 100 million trees a year--significantly contributing to climate change. The Junk Mail Effect equals the emissions of nine millions cars, the total emissions of seven U.S. states combined, or the emissions equal to heating nearly 13 million homes for the winter. To get rid of some of yours, go to www.dmachoice.org and opt out of catalogues and credit card offers. Want to do more? Check out www.forestethics.org