Beyond Housing will work to replant trees, clean up trash and remove invasive species of honeysuckle plants from parts of north St. Louis County through a six-month grant from the American Water Charitable Foundation.
The $20,000 grant specifically aims to help environmentally restore neighborhoods within the 24:1 Community in north county that Beyond Housing serves. The organization aims to help clean the air, reduce respiratory issues and beautify the area through the grant. Residents will also be able to engage in tree planting and pruning workshops, as well as removing invasive bush honeysuckle plants from their areas.
North St. Louis County residents deserve to have the same level of urban forest management as west county residents, said Joseph Oelke, director of forestry and community conservation at Beyond Housing.
“We want to build back their community and help them reclaim and make it a desirable place to live for future generations,” he said.
The organization's environmental efforts will help those living in municipalities that are within the Normandy School District's footprint. And many of the areas have high rates of poverty, air pollution and asthma-related hospitalizations.
“The problem is, we are lacking trees — trees clean the air of particulate matter and reduce the amount of carbon,” Oelke said. “They take in all the pollutants, clean it up and then give clean air for residents to breathe.”
He said that from assessments, his division has noticed that many streets in the 24:1 communities are not lined with trees or have decaying trees, and the grant money will help with tree canopy in declining neighborhoods.
The money also will allow residents to learn more about tree planting and pruning through seminars. Beyond Housing plans to partner with the Missouri Department of Conservation and Forest ReLeaf of Missouri and other forestry and conservation organizations to teach residents about the use of native plants in a landscaping environment that will help pollinators, as well as stormwater mitigation.
Planting trees and creating more green spaces is critical to creating a healthy community, said Rebecca Hankins, partnership manager for Forest ReLeaf of Missouri.
“The leaves on trees and those surface areas of trunks and bark can capture those harmful particulate matter in the air, which is known to exacerbate asthma problems,” she said. “The more trees we have in our community, the more work they are absorbing that harmful particulate matter, and the less work our lungs have to do filtering that out of the air.”
She said tree removal or planting can be expensive for residents living in low-income or poor neighborhoods, and having grant funds to help remove diseased or aging trees from disinvested communities can help increase property values.
Hankins hopes residents also will become interested in the journey of reforesting, because it can have a collective impact.
“When we involve the community, and teach them the values that trees bring to their community, then they want to be a part of that movement to replant trees, because a tree is a gift to a future generation,” Hankins said.
