Giving Back to Our Community
It has been a busy few weeks at Tree Trust! We launched our  Annual Giving campaign at our  Growing the Trust event on November 9, Minnesota celebrated Give to the Max Day   on November 16, and our staff is preparing for a short week before the Thanksgiving holiday, and Giving Tuesday on November 28! 

We are so grateful for our community's support of our mission; hours of work by volunteers, kind words from participants and their families, happy Landscape Services customers, and the investment of our donors and funders. 

We wanted to share a few ways that Tree Trust is paying that support forward into our community through volunteering, partnerships, and special projects, and wish all of our supporters and followers a Happy Thanksgiving! 
Feed My Starving Children
Last week, 6 participants and 5 staff gathered at Feed My Starving Children. Working alongside other community volunteers, we packed 32,184 meals! That's enough food to feed 88 children around the world for a full year! 

Habitat for Humanity
Our YouthBuild participants worked with A Brush with Kindness, a Habitat for Humanity program that helps low-income home owners maintain and repair their homes. This program was part of a learning experience for YouthBuild participants, who will be developing their construction and home-maintenance skills throughout the coming year in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and Urban Homeworks. 

Christina, T'zya, Lawrence, and Alexus painted a bedroom for a retired woman living in North Minneapolis who takes in homeless youth.  They felt they got a lot out of the experience because they were able to meet the person they were helping. YouthBuild is one of five JobPrep programs at Tree Trust. Learn more about JobPrep on our website. 
100 Day Challenge
Since July, Tree Trust has been participating in Hennepin County's  100 Day Challenge, a national effort to develop solutions to youth homelessness. Tree Trust was one of 16 local nonprofit and government agencies to work on the project in Hennepin County. Our cohort was the first of participants in the 100 Day Challenge to focus on both housing and employment. 

Hennepin County's goal was to help 150 youth exit homelessness, and help 113 of them find employment. At the end of the 100 days, the cohort had housed 236 youth and employed 135 youth! 

Our Outreach Coordinator, Ashley, was in Louisville, KY last week to present to the national meeting of 100 Day Challenge participants. During the meeting, participants worked on next steps towards integrating housing and employment services to best serve youth experiencing homelessness. 
 

Learn more about Hennepin County's participation.  You can also search the following hashtags on Twitter to learn more about this project. 
We're Hiring for YACC!
Tree Trust is now hiring 18-24 year olds who live in Hennepin Country for our newest cohort of the Young Adult Conservation Corps program. Interested in outdoor work? Apply by filling out our interest form. 

If you work with youth and young adults and want to learn more about how our programs might help your participants, please contact our Outreach Coordinator, Ashley . 
When you donate to Tree Trust, you positively impact environmental health and the lives of thousands of people in your own community. It is through the essential support of our donors and volunteers that Tree Trust has been able to transform lives and landscapes for more than 40 years.