By Naomi Kim-Yu
While working in the commercial sector as an urban forester, Samuel Wright mainly removed trees. Now, as a member of the campus facilities landscaping team at Mizzou (University of Missouri-Columbia), Wright gets to plant them.
“It’s a breath of fresh air to be out there and put trees back,” he says. In his role, Wright has the chance not just to plant and care for trees across Mizzou’s campus, but also to work with students and further their knowledge about trees. “Our department is working toward the bigger mission of the university: education,” he explains.
To do so, Wright has built relationships with the faculty and students in both the horticulture and natural resources programs at Mizzou. He frequently provides hands-on pruning demos and speaks at different classes. These outreach efforts have been successful. “Quite a few members of [an urban forestry class] serve on our tree committee,” he says, referring to part of the Tree Campus programming Mizzou participates in through the Arbor Day Foundation. This kind of direct student involvement helps promote urban forestry at the university.
Mizzou students interested in urban forestry, landscaping, and sustainability also show up to help with tree planting projects, gaining firsthand experience as a result. Wright says his team has planted a number of Forest ReLeaf trees in different areas across campus with students’ help. In McAlester Park, for instance, they’ve planted over 75 trees in a stream bank corridor over the last few years, mostly using Forest ReLeaf trees to stabilize the bank and to add younger trees to the canopy. These plantings support the park’s ecosystem and improve the longevity of the tree canopy overall.
“It’s hard to use big trees, so having volunteer-friendly containerized trees”—like the ones that Forest ReLeaf provides—“is a huge help,” Wright says. Forest ReLeaf’s offerings make the planting process more manageable and accessible for a range of volunteers who want to participate.
That’s perhaps especially important given that Wright’s interest in building relationships branches out beyond Mizzou students. “A lot of the surrounding community comes to visit [the park],” Wright says, and a local elementary school is located nearby. After Wright got in touch with the school about urban forestry, one of the students joined a planting project at McAlester Park, working “shoulder-to-shoulder with Mizzou students,” as Wright puts it. He hopes this is just the beginning of a deeper relationship with the students and teachers at the elementary school: “My hope is that I can build that relationship and nurture their own tree campus program.”
Wright knows how important it is not just to plant new trees—and create new relationships—but to provide the care that ensures their survival well into the future. He’s been diligent about the aftercare for the new trees on Mizzou’s campus, finding the work valuable as he considers the positive impacts the trees’ survival will have in the years to come.
“It’s always been my dream that some of the alumni will come back fifteen years down the line and say, ‘I think I planted that tree!’”
This project was made possible by Forest ReLeaf’s CommuniTree program!
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I am Elijah Belz, the Field Operations Coordinator for Forest ReLeaf. I am a certified arborist and the primary person in the field for Forest ReLeaf, maintaining roughly 1000 trees planted in the St. Louis City, and maintaining our equipment our equipment used to maintain our trees! This job is a catch-all position that carries different responsibilities during the different seasons. Fall and spring are our planting, tree delivery, and inventory season; winter is our pruning, mulching, and planning season; summer is our watering season where we lead a crew of interns getting into the green industry.
My background is bicycle repair! I was in that industry for almost a decade, including running a bicycle repair shop, before taking a job with a tree planting organization in Atlanta. From there I moved to an edible landscape company. I became certified as an arborist while working at Forest ReLeaf this February! Trees rock, bikes are cool too.
De’Nonna Jones graduated from Knox College in 2023 with a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies, driven by a commitment to environmental justice and community-based conservation. Since then, she has gained hands-on experience working across a range of green spaces throughout the St. Louis region, focusing on the care, restoration, and accessibility of urban natural areas. She began her journey at Tower Grove Park, where she developed a deep appreciation for public green spaces as vital community resources, before moving into a stewardship role with the Missouri Botanical Garden in partnership with Great Rivers Greenway. She now serves as the Stewardship Crew Coordinator at Forest ReLeaf. De’Nonna is passionate about creating inclusive pathways into environmental work and empowering tree lovers and emerging conservationists to see themselves as stewards of their communities. Through her work, she strives to strengthen connections between people, trees, and places in urban environments.
After 17 years in the non-profit and public sector, Jess remains committed to mission-driven work that tackles the challenges facing our communities. Their career began with a year of service as an Americorps St. Louis Emergency Response team member, responding to natural disasters and performing conservation projects. That foundation of service led to roles supporting the arts, affordable housing, mental health, and grassroots housing advocacy in St. Louis. During this journey Jess has worked to center the value “nothing about us, without us.” They do their best to ensure that the voices of people who have been marginalized guide the strategy and execution of work that honors their lived experiences. When they aren’t working, Jess is out paddling, hiking, working in their garden, or building something.
