Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current, March 10, 2021, Page 8, Image 8

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    Page 8
March 10, 2021
Mississippi
Alberta
North Portland
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
Photo Courtesy v anCouver P arks and r eCreation
Volunteers from the Black community, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington and Vancouver Urban Youth Program, close out Black History Month by planting
trees at Bagley Community Park.
Cultivating Community Pride
Tree plantings honor legacy of Black leaders
Black History Month was cel-
ebrated in Vancouver with tree
plantings at Bagley Community
Park.
Volunteers from the Black
community, Boys & Girls Clubs
of Southwest Washington and
the city’s Urban Youth program,
worked in small groups on Feb.
27 to plant 24 trees while follow-
ing COVID-19 safety guidelines.
They were joined by Vancouver
Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle, Ur-
ban Forestry Commissioner Clif
Barnes and Parks and Recreation
Advisory Commissioner Matthew
Kuntz.
The annual tree planting event
began in 2006 and honors the leg-
acy of many Black American lead-
ers by encouraging civic engage-
ment and cultivating community
pride. This year’s ceremony began
with an acknowledgement recog-
nizing the Cowlitz and Chinook
tribes. Vancouver Parks and Rec-
reation Special Events Coordina-
tor and Urban Youth leader Johnie
Tucker also shared a brief histo-
ry of George Washington Bush, a
Black pioneer who was one of the
earliest permanent settlers in the
Washington Territory.
In addition to aesthetic im-
provements, increasing the urban
tree canopy helps the environment
by off-setting carbon dioxide pro-
duced by cities, and the root sys-
tems that trees develop are useful
in stormwater management.