New Year, New Partners

Showshoe With Hugh!

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Our Naturalist and Videographer Extraordinaire, Hugh Denno, is back!  Hugh, Alexis and Maria led our January Snowshoe Hikes last week in partnership with the Tahoe Rim Trail Association.  These fun outings booked up fast and were a great hit.  Participants learned about the forest ecology, local history and geology at beautiful Echo Lakes.

See what fun they had in this video!

KNOW YOUR TREES

One of the best things about evergreens, is that you can tell them apart year round!  Participants learned the ecology and differences between Sierra mixed conifer forest species.
In case you missed the hike: All white pines have five needles per bundle!  Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines have three.  Lodgepoles have two.
Know which white pine is pictured above, on the right?
Hint: it's NOT a sugar pine!  It lives much higher up in the mountains.

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NETWORKING FOR GOOD: Lauren Hunsaker

When is social media a good thing? When people like Lauren Hunsaker learn about environmental groups like the Sugar Pine Foundation and helps us plant more trees!

We had the pleasure of organizing a planting with Lauren this past November along the stunningly gorgeous new Incline Village Bike Path. Lauren rallied her co-workers from the Great Basin Institute (GBI) in Reno to help us plant about 100 sugar pine seedlings - by bike!

Thanks to Lauren’s motivation and dedication to doing good environmental work in the Reno-Tahoe area, we are excited to count her and GBI as new planting partners.

When we asked Lauren to tell us more about herself and her story of getting involved with us, it was interesting and inspiring to learn that she first heard about the Sugar Pine Foundation through social media as an Environmental Science student at the University of Nevada - Reno. She had grown up visiting Lake Tahoe and Sugar Pine Point State Park with her family and was eager to study and get involved with the environment and outdoors community in the Reno-Tahoe area. Even though the Sugar Pine Foundation had been on her radar for some time, it wasn’t until she was a Patagonia employee in spring 2019 that Lauren had her first ever experience planting trees with us during a Patagonia Field Day. Despite it being a cold, rainy, stormy spring day, Lauren enthusiastically recalls that she “had a blast!”

Not long after that spring planting, Lauren started as the Development Coordinator at GBI. Within just the first few months in her new role, she reached out to us to organize a team bonding experience for her co-workers and made the Incline Village Bike Path planting happen. Impressively, all attendees brought their bicycles and backpacks and then cycled with shovels and other planting gear to plant native sugar pines along the otherwise sunny, open bike path.

Lauren’s passion and commitment to the environment is evident in all that she has done, particularly in her new role at GBI and in the initiative she has taken to partner with us. We look forward to working with her and her team to plant and nurture more sugar pines in and around the Tahoe region this spring and into the future!

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PARTNER WITH US!
We're always looking for new groups to partner with - and our spring plantings are just a few months away!
It's FUN to plant trees!
We would love to work with you to organize a planting, spring or fall.
maria@sugarpinefoundation.org
650-814-9565

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Thank You, January Donors!

El Dorado Community Foundation, Tahoe Fund
Julie Gabele, Cherie Martchenke
Doug & Melinda Kaewert, James & Lydia Stang
Stephanie Craven, Peak Landscape Inc. of Truckee
Brendan McFeely, Joan Dudney, Evelyn Misner
Marilee Rocca, Debra Hendrickson, Kelly Bauleke
Lundin Family Foundation
Cheryl Stern, Paul & Christine Close