Where exactly will your Christmas tree end up after the season?

It’s a lot of fun to have a tree to decorate your home for the holidays, but it’s also comforting to know that the little tree in your living room will have a long life ahead of it. It won’t end up as mulch or in a landfill, but planted back into the earth immediately after the holidays. It is such a great feeling to be able to help replenish the land here in San Diego. Our Elves did a great job this season compiling the stories of everyone who received trees. Read on to learn more about the families and organizations that have benefited from our program…..

.2010 Season2010 Season

2012 Season

A VIDEO of Jeff in El Cajon accepting a delivered donation of 30 Trees for his land…..

VIDEO: Adopt-A-Christmas-Tree After the Holiday Season Donation

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My name is Rich, and this is my THIRD season receiving trees from your wonderful  program. I volunteer at a Special Ed. School here in San Diego where I teach gardening, planting, and landscaping to the students. I do not get reimbursed for any items I get for the students, so I am always looking for free or inexpensive items for the students to use.

 I have received several Pine Trees from you for my students to use for school projects in the past 3 years. Once I bring the Pine Trees to the school, the students will then be responsible for researching the specific type of Pine Tree, possibly doing book reports on their tree, and then re-potting and keeping the tree healthy.  

I appreciate that you are the Head Elf for this Project and that you were generous enough to donate these trees to me, and thus to my students.  I know they greatly appreciate it as well.

Thanks,
RICH URCHEK

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Hi, we live in east county on an acre and there is also an acre next door. Currently have pine trees coming up on the right side of our driveway about 150 long, will try to get pictures tomorrow in daylight.

We are going to put some more around the perimeter of the property here and next door. I am from West Seattle, lived on Whidbey Island, many years surrounded by fir, pine trees, rowdies and azaleas. Love the park like setting, smell the fresh pine/fir. These will be on the property for many years, for as long as we are here and no doubt our older son a firefighter and his family will take this property over.

We can take as many as you are willing to part with and thank you for this very generous offer!

-Ron J.

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2010 Season

Dear Adopt-a-Christmas Tree,
This year we plan to use the trees from Adopt-Christmas tree to continue our reforesting effort on our property on Palomar Mountain. The trees from last year made a significant visual difference and made great strides in returning evergreens to a fire ravaged landscape. We commend Adopt-a Christmas Tree for aiding us, other fire victims and the environment for coordinating and implementing this worthwhile program. Here is a picture of the trees you were nice enough to donate to us last season…..

Photobucket

Sincerely,
Conrad Macy

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Hi there and Thank You. My mother had a pine tree in her yard that she planted when my father died 10 years ago (they were married on Christmas Eve 1945) that’s why she planted a living Christmas tree. Well, the recent storm with the high winds uprooted the tree and it came crashing down, fortunately it didn’t hit anything but the tree was a goner. My mother was beside herself. This donation you are extending to our family is answering our prayers.
God bless,
Jon

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I am thrilled Christine, Thank You. I would love to plant a few of the trees on my
land. I have a large yard in Jamul. I feed the native birds and enjoy developing a sanctuary for them with a diverse planting. Fruits, nuts and berries are currently in the mix. Not to mention the way their roots help stabilize the slopes in the rainy season.

I applaud your generosity.
Larry Proctor

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My name is Rick, and I live outside of Lakeside. I have 2 acres of land. When I bought this place in 1990 it had 7 trees on it, 4 are Black Walnut trees, 2 are Olive  trees, and 1 is a Brazilian Pepper tree. I now have over 100 trees , the majority were sprouts transplanted from the 4 Black Walnut trees, 10 of them were sprouts that I transplanted from my parents Ash trees, and 8 were sprouts from the Brazilian Pepper tree The remainder were all living Christmas Trees, some from friends, and of course mine,  I would never buy a cut tree, it’s such a waste. I planted my live Christmas tree the day after Christmas.
I really appreciate the six trees that you able to donate to us. They will be planted as soon as I get them home, and they will only be drinking  well water.

Thank You,
Rick

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We recently moved to an area that has no trees around us except the shrubs and wild weeds, our and wild weeds, our house is at the bottom of the treeless hill. We are planning to plant a few evergreen trees such as the pines to provide us with some shade and shelters for the birds so we can see these lovely creatures flying in and out as well as listening to their beautiful chirping sounds. Another reason we will be planting these trees is to keep the soil from the hill from being erode whenever there is rain like the big rain that we had recently.
Have a great day,
Mike

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To the folks at Adopt-A-Christmas-Tree:
We lost over 700 trees in the 2007 wildfires. The Monterey pines will be perfect to plant in a row along the driveway where we lost 15 trees.

Thank you so much! Your help has officially blown FEMA out of the water. (Inside wildfire joke!) Anyone is welcome to come out to the ranch and see where they will be planted and hopefully enjoyed for generations to come.

Thanks,
John Carter

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I live in East County where we were evacuated during the fires. Also, we have lost trees in our area (Oak Trees) due to the Bark Beetle.  I will utilize the trees for their beauty, to keep our air clean and to shade our home in the Spring and Summer. I promise to pick up my trees and provide a good home for them. I live next to the Cleveland National Forest. I will pass on this opportunity for trees to others in my area, too.

Thanks for your generosity :-)
Tina

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HELLO and Happy New Year ! We live up in Alpine on 1 acre and behind our house used to be 100+ blank acres, but somebody just bought some of the property directly behind our house and these trees will be planted as a privacy barrier between the properties.  Plus, I lived in Harbison Canyon until the Cedar Fire burned the house along with a Christmas tree that was planted from a pot in 1974.  I would replace that tree also !  If I can find the pictures of the fire, I’ll get them to you.THANK YOU.

Sincerely,
-Al-

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Hi,
I have a small (5 acre) ranch in Ranchita with not a stitch of greenery besides the weeds, no trees, no nothing. It’s not a real ranch because we do not have any animals.  It’s a 2nd home (for our retirement) that we go to on the weekends. Pine trees are perfect because of the altitude (4000 feet).  The main benefit will be the beauty of watching them grow up and to add color to our barren yard. Our ranch is located right across the street from the Ranchita store so you would be able to watch them grow up if you are ever in that area.
Thank you for donation!

Warmly,
Donna Vanner

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Our family lives in Campo and we had fire ravage through our property in 2004. We are very grateful for these free trees since we typically have to buy live trees and plants.

- Jenny

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Hi,
We have 8 ac. in Jamul, CA 91935 off of Honey Springs Rd.  We had at one time 200 Aleppo Pine trees planted.  We lost some to rabbits and gophers!  But we lost the last ones in the 2007 fire.  The fire went over our property and there was a small group of 5 of the trees that came back.
We spent a lot of time watering our little trees and do really miss them!
I never think we have too many trees out here. We are located across the canyon from a beautiful avocado grove that has been here for 30 some years, I believe.  Many of the avocado trees have came back since the fire! We are so very greatful for the trees Adopt-A-Christmas-Tree will be donating to us on Jan 8th.
The previous trees we had before were all planted by my husband and me and taken care of by us.  We would take good care of the trees!
Thanks for the opportunity,
Rita

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For the last six months or so I have been working on a personal project that involves my yard. This is the project in a nutshell….I live in a rental that has a side yard and a backyard in El Cajon Ca. When I moved in the outside was literally just hard clay dirt, no plants or landscaping of any kind, just hard dirt. Since it is a rental and I live on a basically fixed income of money so the amount I can devote to beautifying the yard is very limited. But slowly over the first 5 years of living here a plan formulated. I decided not to accept the idea that you have to own the home and have lots of money to make your personal environment better and enjoyable. So here is the project……
I gave myself one year and 100 dollars to turn my yard into a beautiful outside area that my family and friends can enjoy. When the year is up I plan to create a website that chronicles our yard’s transformation. I am using only reclaimed items that would have ended up in a landfill etc. I am not posting a website during the process as I want it to be a pure example of what people on limited incomes can do with just a little ingenuity and elbow grease.


We so far have reclaimed patio furniture, aloe vera plants, succulents, a fountain, paving stones, and much more. By this summer I believe that we will have a lovely yard to enjoy, AND will have saved many many plants and other items from the landfill. I think it would be a very fitting inclusion to have a Christmas tree as part of our project.


Just as an aside, I know my concept works, I redid my son’s room for him as a Christmas present. His room was very spare and depressing, so I started collecting, bartering and reclaiming, thrift storing for items about 5 months ago. He went to his Dad’s for xmas, and came home to a brand new room he was thrilled with. The cost was only about 50 bucks. I made him cool furniture out of discarded tire rims, used free paint, rugs, furniture, etc all from Craigs List. Everyone that has seen his room says it looks like it is from a magazine!! We are convinced our yard project will be just as fabulous!!!!

I hope I haven’t rambled on too much, but this has turned into a project I am very excited about.

Thank you for the donation,
Marybeth

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2009 Season

Dear Adopt-a-Christmas Tree,
Our family was the lucky owners of a ten acre heavily wooded parcel on the south grade of S6 about a mile from the summit.  On October 24, 2007, we were engulfed by the Poomacha fire which started at the base of Palomar, and quickly climbed up the mountain.  We had bought the land in 1970, and had built a 500 square foot weekend cabin that could sleep our six young children and us.  We had our own water well, but no electricity or telephone.

Last year we purchased 200 “two- year- old” pine and cedar seedlings, and with the help of 20 or so volunteers pulled together by the Forest Service, planted the trees in early December.  Even with watering the trees on a regular basis, only 50 of the seedlings survived the first year. The Forest Service says that was a very good outcome.   This year we planted 50 more cedar seedlings using the lessons learned from our first attempt. When we learned of the “Adopt-a-Christmas Tree” program we were elated.  The 38 “five to six” foot trees we received and planted, will jumpstart our re-foresting effort to return our property on Palomar Mountain to how we remembered it.  Many, many thanks to the folks who dreamed up the concept and implemented the “Adopt-a-Christmas Tree” program and to the ecology- minded people who chose to have a living Christmas tree, and were willing to gift us with their trees after the Holiday season was over.

Sincerely,
Lillian Macy

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Head Elf Christine & Fellow Elves,

Thank you again for the generous donation of Aleppo Pines and Monterey Pine trees. I have 300 acres and I had lost 57 trees Beatles and a drought, so this is truly a blessing.

P.S.- I had such a great time filming the segment with NBC (http://www.youtube.com/adoptaxmastree#p/a/u/0/Fm9ExuU5it8)

David Raybould
Descanso
Raybould Equipment

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2007 Season


After the 2007 San Diego wildfires, we knew there were numerous families that had acres upon acres of devastated land, so we personally located many that would love to welcome the trees onto their land. Below are before and after pictures of the Maisch family and a sweet letter from them, expressing their appreciation to all the families that participated in Adopt-A-Christmas-Tree last season. They’d lost 10 acres to the Witch Creek Fire. We donated 20 trees to them last year and they’re willing to accept even more this year. We also donated 85 trees to Mr. Leon, who’d lost 40 acres to the Harris Fire, and more to the Canfields, who lost 10 acres to the Witch Creek Fires in Ramona. The most heartfelt donation was to the Deer Habitat for Project Wildlife, which was almost destroyed due to the Harris Fire.

If you know any families or organizations in San Diego that would love to give these gorgeous trees happy homes next season, feel free to let us know and we can make the proper arrangements.

Happy Holidays and Have a Happy, Healthy, Eco-friendly Holiday!