During the spring of 2025, Missouri Conservation Corps was involved in several tree-related events in our community. Our organization helped to give away trees, we raised awareness of the importances of trees, we canvassed door to door offering trees to homeowners in targeted neighborhoods, we planted trees, mulched and watered trees, and we provided a guided tour of some recently planted trees in central Columbia.
This frenzy of tree-centric activity started in late April when AmeriCorps VISTA member Anna Do and MCC Project Director Stephen Bybee volunteered for the annual Callery Pear Buyback event at the Missouri Department of Conservation offices in Columbia. Organized by Missouri Invasive Plant Council and Missouri Department of Conservation, the Callery Pear Buyback is an annual event that offers Missourians the chance to receive a native shrub or tree in exchange for cutting down and removing an invasive pear tree. Participants in the program were encouraged to cut down an invasive Callery or Bradford pear on their property, upload a photo, and then register for a replacement tree. The replacement trees were all native Missouri trees grown and provided by St. Louis’s Forest ReLeaf of Missouri and by Forrest Keeling Nursery of Ellsberry, Missouri. During this event we were able to give away 115 native Missouri trees from the parking lot of the MDC Central Regional Office in Columbia, Missouri.
Coordinating directly with MDC Forester Ann Koenig, we collected some of the leftover trees that were not needed during the giveaway event, and we used them to create a temporary “tree bank” for springtime tree planting in Columbia. Trees kept in the tree bank were stored in Stephen Bybee’s driveway and were eventually used in various ways throughout our community throughout the months of May and June. Ten of the trees were shared with the staff of Mizzou Botanic Gardens for a tree planting led by students on the MU campus, another ten or twelve of the trees were given away during a pop-up neighborhood tree event in north-central Columbia, one of the trees was planted along a creek in a public green space, one of the trees was planted during a tree-planting demonstration, and the final tree was planted in a homeowners yard in northeast Columbia.
Missouri Conservation Corps was very excited to partner with community members to plan and organize our first pop-up neighborhood tree event in north central Columbia. To organize this event, we selected a canopy-challenged residential street near downtown Columbia, brought a dozen of the Forest ReLeaf and Forrest Keeling trees leftover from the Pear Tree Buyback event, selected some tree literature from the Columbia Tree Board, and found a homeowner who was willing to host us in her front yard.
During this event our organization partnered with Ann Koenig from the Missouri Department of Conservation and with Nina Thomas from the City of Columbia’s Office of Sustainability to teach participants about the importance of canopy coverage in urban environments, and to share knowledge about different varieties of native trees. We also shared brochures on tree selection and tree care prepared by the Columbia Tree Boad, and we gave a tree-planting demonstration with a shortleaf pine in our accommodating host’s front yard.
At the end of this urban tree event neighbors and community members who came to learn about trees took home a tree to plant in their own yards, and north-central Columbia became just a little bit greener.
The gallery of photos below shares a few highlights from our spring tree-related events in 2025…we hope to actively promote trees again this fall with the help of our partners, Forest ReLeaf, Missouri Department of Conservation, City of Columbia Office of Sustainability, and the Columbia Tree Board!
