Once Upon A Tree

    To win the regional challenge, we planted seven trees in the Tonto National Forest to prevent desertification.  We worked with the US Forest Service to plant the seven trees in the national forest.  The trees were donated to us by various individuals,  Lowe's and Moon Valley Nursery.

     The environmental issue that we are trying to combat this time is deforestation caused by the forest pine beetle, and also to help re-vitalize forests by clear cutting.  For the national challenge, we are working with Colorado State University and Northern Arizona University.

Our project with Colorado State University is to set up a new foundation called Once Upon A Tree.  This foundation will serve the Colorado State University as an outreach to schools and individuals to conduct fundraisers and donate money to  able to sponsor/plant sapling trees. This foundation will be a forum for future generations to continue combatting deforestation in Colorado. We are also going to sponsor a web cam that will be placed in the Nurserie so that the sponsors can track how well their trees are growing and aid the researchers on learning more about the forest pine beetle.

Our work with NAU will involve raising enough money to clear cut ne acre of forest and also to find sponsors that  will donate tools to the NAU forestry department. These tools are needed because the department often holds volunteer days, when people go to the forests to help dig out invasive weeds and clear out debris from the forest floor. These tools would be used by the volunteers.

In order to raise all the money that we need, we have been making and selling crafts from recycled goods, such as water bottle holders from plastic bags, bracelets from string and beads that were going to be thrown away, and origami flowers made from old wallpaper.we love this idea because it means that we are saving landfill space and at the same time, we are raising money to plant trees.

 Our goal is to earn $2,000.  This will mean that we can sponsor a web cam for $600 and then sponsor 1,000 saplings.  Each sapling can be sponsored for justone dollar. This would leave $400 which would be used towards clear cutting one acre of forest. We would also try to get as many yard toolsdonated as possible.