The Knoxville Tree Board is has put down strong roots and is thriving. The problem is, few citizens know of their efforts and success.
In fact, a 2006 survey of 1,000 Knox County homeowners found that 93 percent of those surveyed were completely unaware of the Board, its efforts to expand the Board into the county, or its Master Street Tree Plan or the Knoxville-Knox County Tree Conservation & Planting Plan the Board is promoting.
After pondering these numbers at a Board-sponsored retreat in December, the members have devised a multi-front plan that they hope will plant the seeds of awareness among the general population of what the Board’s vision is for our communities.
The central thrusts of the effort include an increased focus on education at the school level, as well as higher profile events and community involvement among adults.
The Board has maintained a strong Arbor Day program since 1992, and plans to leverage their close partnership with Ijams Nature Center to increase their exposure. The poster contests the Board has sponsored in previous years has been very well received, and they hope to include a series of upgrades to their program in the future, perhaps involving individual Board members to court school in their own communities, enticing schools to incorporate Board initiatives into their curricula, and recruit experts at the University of Tennessee into their plans.
The Board is also hoping to increase the exposure for Project Learning Tree, on the web at www.plt.org, which offers educators in grades K-12 resources for environmental education.
Among adults, the Board would like to establish a Speaker’s Bureau, which Kim Brown described as a “system for publicizing city tree information to neighborhood associations, schools, and other organizations.” They also hope to inaugurate a hotline for tree information and requests, perhaps through establishing an offshoot of the city’s 3-1-1 program. They also plan to extend invitations to the general public to attend Board meetings and experience their efforts firsthand.
The group has also discussed expanding its presence on the City of Knoxville’s website, at http://www.cityofknoxville.org/boards/citytree.asp, a presence that places the Board among the leaders throughout the 36 Tree Cities in the state.
