Heartland Tree Alliance (HTA) has launched a digital approach to funding trees in the Kansas City metropolitan area.
HTA and its city partners now give residents the opportunity to pay directly for the planting of trees in their own hometowns. With a simple click on the HTA website, donors can specify how much they would like to give to a particular city, and then watch as the tree fund for that city grows. Each time a fund reaches $1,000, HTA will launch a tree-planting event with that city, giving residents the opportunity to see their dollars go to work.
A city has its own tree needs, and HTA will work with each city to determine the best way to invest the tree fund in that area. For some cities that means planting seedlings along streams and creeks; for others it means 12-foot street trees. For this reason, $1,000 pays for different quantities in different situations, from as many as 1,000 bare-root seedlings to six street trees. Whatever the quantity, the impact will be the same: Tree Fund donations will directly and quickly green the Kansas City area.
HTA’s Tree Fund and a list of its municipal partners can be found on the Bridging the Gap website. The City of Kansas City, Mo., is joined by others across the area, including Kansas City, Kan.; Belton; Excelsior Springs; Gladstone; Leawood; Lenexa; Liberty; Mission; Olathe; Overland Park; Parkville; Paola; Platte County; Prairie Village; Raymore, and Shawnee.
Heartland Tree Alliance is a program of Bridging The Gap, the region’s primary environmental education organization. The Heartland Tree Alliance mission is to engage people of the Greater Kansas City region to take action and advocate for a healthy community forest. HTA’s other offerings include its signature program, Tree Keepers, which trains volunteers from the Kansas City area to be tree stewards for their own communities.