November 21 | 7pm
More than 150 years ago, our cities were built from old growth forests.
Today, the urban forests of Pierce County have some of the lowest tree canopy coverage in Western Washington.
Thanks to a growing number of tree advocates in our neighborhoods and governments, we have more tree protections than ever before and residents are excited about what trees can do for the future of their communities. But we stand at a crossroads: we are a rapidly growing region contending with climate change.
It is time to grow our love of trees into a movement that sustains our region’s communities through the challenges of the 21st century.
Join us to learn about the challenges we face and the opportunities we can seize with your support!
November 21
Milgard Hall, UW-T
7PM
Welcome:
Keynote:
Jeffrey Thomas, Muckleshoot Tribe
Dr. Lowell Wyse, Executive Director
8PM
CHEERS TO TREES GATHERING
Sponsored by Peaks and Pints
RAFFLE
Sponsored by 7Seas
JOIN THE MOVEMENT
Jeffrey Thomas
Jeffrey is a lifelong Muckleshoot tribal elder who descends from the Wasco, Yakama and Nez Perce tribes, too. He is president of the Tahoma Indian Center Board of Directors, and has been a cross-cultural ambassador since first performing with the Seattle All-American Indian Dancers at 6 years old. Jeffrey’s lifetime of cultural ties to salmon resources led him to becoming a local fisheries biologist in 1983. He started with the Point No Point Treaty Council, and worked for other tribal fisheries organizations after that, until becoming the director of the Puyallup Tribal Timber, Fish & Wildlife Program (August 1989), where he has been implementing the 1987 Washington State Timber/Fish/Wildlife Agreement for the Puyallup tribal community ever since.
Lowell Wyse
Lowell has served as Executive Director of the Tacoma Tree Foundation since 2021. He comes from a long line of teachers and land stewards, and is a descendant of both Swiss-German Mennonite farmers, who moved to Ohio’s Maumee Watershed seeking religious freedom, and the Ojibwe people, who continue to steward the lands and waters around Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. He grew up on his family’s farm in Michigan, and now lives and works in downtown Tacoma and volunteers on the Sustainable Tacoma Commission. The values of community, justice, stewardship, resilience, storytelling, and placemaking motivate his commitment to fulfilling the Tacoma Tree Foundation’s mission as a community-based organization that works to grow a greener, more equitable, and resilient urban area.
Jaminah Shannon
Rooted between California’s Bay area and Tacoma Washington’s Hilltop, Jaminah Shannon is a guest resident of the təqʷuʔməʔ/spwiya'laphabsh Puyallup tribal lands. Jaminah is a Western Washington University alum in Sociology, American Cultural Studies and a minor in Music. She is also a current Cambridge Muslim College Islamic Psychology 2025 diploma candidate. She has served youth, women and families for over a decade as a Teaching Artist, Consultant and Community Wellness Liason in the higher Academia, Non Profit, and Social Services sectors. In 2021, she founded Plant Deeds Wellness, her professional Life Coaching practice and 3 Crowns (2019), a mobile salon catered to textured hair care, to address the cultural, educational & wellness needs in her communities. Jaminah primarily serves the Pacific Northwest as a professional Holistic Life Coach, Homeschool Consultant, Capacity Building Coach and Community Program Developer. Her mission is to cultivate sustainable sacred spaces for women, healers, youth/families and community stewards to heal, transform and thrive- one deed at a time. She is a Climate Leadership Cohort 2024 alum, a Tree Steward, and a Tree Captain.
Michael Yadrick
My family and I have been living in Tacoma for 9 years, and we are grateful for a walkable neighborhood and close-knit community. My ancestry includes Irish, Scottish, Colombian, and Slavic roots, several generations removed from farming and mining livelihoods.
I gravitate to Arbutus (madrone) trees, because of the way they twist and turn towards the sun and grow in unlikely places. I imagine a future for Tacoma where we achieve tree equity and heat justice and we adapt to current and future impacts of climate disruption. I believe in the power of Tacoma Tree Foundation to help us all come together around the urban forest as a means of peace-building across diverse cultures, ancestries, abilities, ages, and genders.
I work as a Restoration Ecologist at the City of Tacoma's Environmental Services Open Space Progam.
Robb Krehbiel
Robb is a TTF Tree Captain, donor, and community partner. Originally from the Midwest, Robb has lived in the Puget Sound region for over a decade. During that time, he has worked on a range of environmental policies and programs across the Pacific Northwest, including those related to endangered species, public lands management, stormwater runoff, and environmental justice. For the past three years, Robb has served as a member of Tacoma's Planning Commission, representing District 5 and leading conversations about trees. Robb is a firm believer that human communities and wild ones can coexist on the landscape. He is passionate about integrating nature into our cities, restoring ecological resilience, and advancing environmental justice.
About Milgard Hall
We are grateful for our partners at UW-T’s Office of Community Partnerships who generously donated the space for this event. Adjacent to the lecture hall where the event will take place is a stunning gallery that is part of the microforest project currently being developed by a team of University of Washington Tacoma (UWT) students, professors, and community partners. The goal is to grow a microfest on the northeast corner of South 17th Street and Commerce Street.
At UWT, a microforest is a promising afforestation method suited to urban contexts because these can be planted in small and irregular plots of public land that are otherwise unsuitable for other types of development. This managed landscape will serve as a public and educational space. It will help center and, in some cases, recover the presence and history of the people and cultures that have dwelled and worked in this place, including native and Indigenous people and those who came to Tacoma to work in the timber industry.
HELP US GROW THIS MOVEMENT
Thank you, Sponsors!
Community Partner Donna Thompson, the Tacoma Garden Club, Davey Tree Experts, Jenny Wetzel Windermere Real Estate, UW-T Office of Community Partnerships, and Peaks and Pints.
Meet the Staff and Board
Meet the people of TTF who make our growing tree canopy possible.
