Photo courtesy of Northeast Tree Tenders

The East Falls Community and Philadelphia University dedicate an entire day for their students and community members to team up with the Tree Tenders charity in an effort revitalize the community. The goal for Philadelphia is to have a tree canopy of 30 percent by 2025; Tree Tenders has a lot of work to do. The charity gets requests from local neighbors and business about where to plant trees and students (with the guidance of a Tree Tender team leader) walk from location to location with shovels in hand to help spread the love, dropping off bulbs in each new location. Using the existing soil, volunteers dig up and re-plant each new tree. The East Falls neighborhood will no doubt benefit from this beautification and its community members are so thankful that they even brought hot chocolate and tomato pies out to the volunteers. If you live in East Falls, you can apply for a Fall 2011 Tree Vitalize street by filling out the application or contacting Cynthia Kishinchand. The deadline for applications is Monday, March 21.