Peninsula Breathing 19,000 Trees Better

Katie Krouse of the Climate Change Coalition of Door County receives 4,500 trees for this spring’s Big Plant. Submitted.

Since 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has funded more than 1,600 NEA Big Read programs, provided more than $22 million to organizations nationwide, extended Big Read activities in every congressional district in the country, inspired 5.7 million Americans to attend an NEA Big Read event, and partnered with more than 39,000 community organizations to make NEA Big Read activities possible.

If a Big Read campaign worked so well with reading, maybe a Big Plant would work with planting trees. So went the thought process of the organizers of the Climate Change Coalition (CCC) of Door County’s inaugural Big Plant. 

They sought to get some 10,000 new trees into the earth up and down the peninsula between Earth Day, which was April 22, and the end of May. They achieved that goal.

“The Big Plant far exceeded our goal,” said Roy Thilly, CCC co-chair. “We now believe more than 19,000 trees were planted as a part of this new idea. The CCC has always collaborated with The Nature Conservancy and the Forest Recovery Project to organize tree plantings with local schools and the public. The Big Plant supersized that effort by raising awareness and empowering residents, businesses and local organizations across the peninsula to plant trees. 

“It also cross-promoted those tree-planting efforts already being done by organizations such as Crossroads at Big Creek and the Door County Land Trust. This doesn’t include those who were inspired by the event to privately plant trees on their own.

“We’ll definitely look to make it an annual event,” Thilly said. “We are thrilled.”