In April 2026, a truckload of young trees arrived in Columbia and were delivered to the Columbia Parks and Recreation office near Cosmo Park. On this truck were more than 150 native Missouri trees from the Forest ReLeaf nursery in St. Louis. Forest ReLeaf is an environmental nonprofit whose mission is to “enrich communities by growing and planting trees through the power of people and partnerships.” Missouri Conservation Corps has been planting trees provided by Forest ReLeaf since our first Kiwanis Park tree planting in 2022. Since then, we have planted more than 200 trees provided by our tree-growing partners in St. Louis, including volunteer-led tree plantings in Kiwanis Park, Garth Nature Area, Indian Hills Park, the Columbia Public Library, Karis Church, Hogan House Pantry, and in residential yards throughout Columbia. This spring truckload of 150 native trees was being delivered to two tree-planting partner in Columbia… the Columbia Office of Sustainability, and Missouri Conservation Corps.
Our organizations share a new tree-planting mission in Columbia called CoMo Canopy. The goal of the CoMo Canopy program is to increase urban tree coverage in Columbia neighborhoods with inadequate tree coverage. The trees we ordered for our organization included redbud, black walnut, hackberry, hazelnut, roughleaf dogwood, deciduous holly, sugar maple, river birch, and several species of oak trees, including bur, white, chinkapin, red, and overcup oak. In total, we received 52 trees from this truckload, and we began planting and deploying trees within days of their arrival. While the Office of Sustainability and Missouri Conservation Corps share canopy enrichment goals through CoMo Canopy, our methods and strategies are a little different. Missouri Conservation Corps is working primarily in an area of Columbia described as Tier One by the Missouri Department of Conservation (see shaded red areas on the map). Tier One Columbia is spread across our First, Second, and Third Wards, in neighborhoods described as “low-canopy” and “high-heat” by our canopy mapping data and by data from the City’s 2022 urban heat study. Our trees can be given to homeowners and residents in Tier One Columbia, but we can also plant these trees with churches, schools, and nonprofits throughout the city.
During the spring of 2026, Missouri Conservation Corps planted or deployed our 52 trees to 21 separate locations in Columbia, including residential yards in the West Ash neighborhood, the Benton-Stephens neighborhood, the Parkade neighborhood, the Ridgeway neighborhood, and the North Central neighborhood. We also planted trees with staff and volunteers at the Columbia Public Library, and which community volunteers in Grindstone Nature Area. Missouri Conservation Corps is proud of the work we did this spring, and we are excited to be involved with the CoMo Canopy program again this fall. We will be bringing more trees to Columbia in October for another round of residential and community tree planting in Tier One neighborhoods throughout the city. If you live in a Tier One neighborhood in Columbia and are interested in a free tree for your yard, please contact Missouri Conservation Corps Project Director Stephen Bybee at [email protected] or use the contact form on our website.
