Dear Friends,
When the safer-at-home order went into effect in March, we had to start doing a lot of things differently here at the Corps. One unexpected positive was the implementation of a daily conference call with all of our executive management team, site directors, program managers and coordinators. We share news, policy changes, successes and setbacks, and maybe, most importantly, a morning motivation shared by a different person each day.
We’ve always been a geographically diffuse group, spread out from Tujunga to Compton, Boyle Heights to Reseda. It probably shouldn’t have taken this type of emergency to create a stronger connection between us all, but through these calls we have learned just how much we can lean on each other.
Today, I led the morning motivation by clueing my colleagues into a book I just finished, The Overstory, the 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Fiction by Richard Powers. If you know me, then you probably aren’t surprised that I feel so connected to a book about trees and humanity’s interactions with the natural world.
As I told everyone today, this book reminds me of the awesome responsibility and history we have to live up to here at the Corps. Our tree planting legacy goes back to the 1930s and, even today, we are looking ahead to how the power of the Corps and trees can aid in our city’s and state’s recovery.
Last week, I was able to join Councilman Mitch O’Farrell to kick off a new initiative aimed at planting 120 new trees in his district over the next year. Partnerships like this create jobs, improve local infrastructure, and bring multiple environmental and quality of life benefits to the community.
While we continue to help with food delivery and other COVID-19 response and relief efforts, we are looking ahead to planting the seeds for more projects like this in the months and years ahead.
It warmed my heart to see an anonymous donor recognize these efforts recently when they commented, “God bless [the Corps] for caring for and extending the miracle of TREES!” Whoever you are, we thank you for your support, and we will keep spreading that miracle anywhere we can.
Yours in service and gratitude,
Wendy Butts
Chief Executive Officer
LA Conservation Corps
P.S. Thank you to everyone who has supported our Answering the Call Campaign. We will be wrapping up on May 31, and would love to hit our $10,000 goal before then. Thanks to the support of friends new and old, we are so close!
If you haven’t visited the page, drop by today and listen to a special thank you message from one of our outstanding Corpsmembers, Brandon. He truly embodies the #lacorpspower!