While you may not always see them, thousands of volunteers are out planting and caring for trees throughout Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.
They're a part of Openland's TreeKeeper course.
"It certifies people to be able to prune, mulch, how to properly plant. It also teaches you how to identify a tree," said Openlands Forestry Program Coordinator Johan Martinez. "It really gives you a nice breadth of what arboriculture is, and then we can use those skills in our workdays."
The month-long program has trained more than 2,200 volunteers, preparing them to help build a healthier, more resilient urban forest in the face of climate change.
"It's really making sure that people are taking care of the trees in their neighborhoods, taking care of the trees in Chicago and also advocating for them," Martinez said.
He said while most people probably know that trees are good for the environment and for people, they might not realize just how many benefits they have for communities.
"It helps with climate change, it helps with the urban heat island effect, it helps clean our air, it helps clean the rainwater that comes down," he said. "They can help bring people together. They help just create third spaces where people can come and congregate."
Registration is now open for the course. Martinez said Openlands is hoping to increase the number of TreeKeepers on the South and West Sides in particular.
"When you go to some of these South Side neighborhoods or some of these West Side neighborhoods, you'll see that it's just pure concrete. There's no trees," he said. "For this new course that we have, we're intentionally having it on the Southeast Side, so we can have members of the Southeast Side community join us."
