Neighborhood coordinators are key volunteers that help to catalyze a neighborhood and get homeowners interested in planting with FOT.

Training will prepare people for the next planting season, November 2006-April 2007.

Each year, Tree Team volunteers monitor the health of newly planted street trees. Volunteers are trained to identify problems with tree care and maintenance. Each volunteer is assigned a neighborhood route where trees have been planted during the past year. Each tree's health is inspected: Is it receiving enough water? Has its bark been scarred by lawnmowers or car doors? Is the ground around it properly weeded and mulched? Is the tree healthy and free of diseases and pests? Volunteers leave door-hangers for homeowners, congratulating them for taking good care of their new trees and identifying ways they can help to improve their trees' health.

Information: NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY! Individuals do NOT need to pre-register. Groups are asked to sign up by e-mailing the Volunteer Program Manager with the group's contact information, event name and date, and the number of youth and/or adults registering. Groups are required to have one adult volunteer for every three to four youth volunteers. Tools and guidance will be provided. Sturdy shoes, long pants and long sleeves recommended!

One of the largest Earth Day celebrations in the nation takes place in the greater Portland metropolitan area.  Thousands of volunteers converge on approximately 100 project sites and work together to SOLV IT.  SOLV IT, presented by Portland General Electric, focuses on cleaning illegal dumpsites, beautifying and enhancing neighborhoods and public spaces, restoring watersheds, and much more.  In the past sixteen years, SOLV IT volunteers have removed more than 6,100 tons of debris from illegal dumpsites, neighborhoods and natural areas. 

 Come explore with us edible plants of rich meadows, rocky         
woods, and a gorge of the Eastern Cascades. See beautiful vistas of Mount      
Adams. We'll find edible blue camas, death camas, Indian celery, St John's     
wort, American bistort, and more. Wild foods are not so hard to find when      
you know where to look. Meeting Site: Car pool or caravan with us from the Mall's parking lot at the   
SW corner of SE 105th Ave and Washington St. (Across from Denny's, see map).   
Be ready to leave this parking area by 9am with a full tank of gas. Use the    
Denny's restroom before 9am. This meeting site is about one block East of      
Mall 205. OR.. meet us on **the Washington side of Hood River bridge at the Visitor       
Information Center and Parking area (one block west of the bridge on State     
Route 14). We will meet at the western most end of the parking lot. Be there     
by 9:20am and wait - bring a book to read or make friends with others          
waiting, in case we get delayed. If you need gas or food there is a Union 76   
station one block east of the bridge. We will swing by soon after that to pick   
you up and proceed on to the first workshop site. You must be there when we    
arrive or you will miss us. YOU MUST LET US KNOW if you are carpooling from    
Plaza 205 or meeting us at the Washington parking site!                        
Use the Registration Form available through the workshop page of our web       
site. For more information call Wild Food Adventures.       
Enrollment Limited! - Advanced registration reserves you a place in the        
class.  Walk ons may be turned away if our class limit is reached.Wild Food Adventures is an Institute for the Study of Edible Wild Plants & Other Foragables.

August 12 with Tom Pierson.  Geology to the crater rim.

This is your chance to climb to the south crater rim of Mount St. Helens and peer down at an actively growing lava dome on the only currently erupting volcano in continental North America with one of the people whose life work is to study volcanic processes.  As we make the 4,500 foot climb we will stop at many points to study the geological phenomena visible along the route.  This is not a technical climb, but because of the difficulty and length of the ascent, only people in excellent physical condition should sign up for this arduous adventure.  The climb requires a dawn departure, so camping at the Climbers’ Bivouac (or staying at a nearby motel) on the night before is most recommended.  Note: This seminar will depend on the absence of any explosive activity in the crater.  If conditions prohibit climbing, another geology trip will be substituted.

July 28 with John Bishop.  Biological reassembly on the pumice plain. 

The eruption of Mount St. Helens dramatically rearranged the biological and geological landscape of southwest Washington.  Spend a day visiting the most dramatically affected area, the place that President Carter compared to a moonscape, to see how that landscape has changed in 25 years.  We will see examples of the dramatic and sometimes surprising resilience of life in response to an infrequent, yet cyclic, devastation. 

July 21-22 with Gary Braasch.  Photography in the eye of the volcano. 

This overnight will be dedicated to the photographer’s eye, seeing Mount St. Helens as it is and as it has been.  Gary Braasch has photographed the varied moods and changes of Mount St. Helens since before the 1980 eruption.  He will share time-series images he has created and take us to some of the places he has photographed repeatedly over the years. 

July 2, with Robert Michael Pyle.  Buckwheats and Blues. 

Spend a day with renowned butterfly chaser Robert Michael Pyle looking for two elusive species of butterflies linked to buckwheat plants. Last July Dr. Pyle found the beautiful Blue Copper, an "east-of-the-Cascades" buckwheat specialist, on the abundant naked buckwheat along the road to Windy Ridge.  This was a major range extension westward.  Now he hopes to find the tiny  Enoptes Dotted Blue, another buckwheat specialist, so far found in only a single location in Washington.  We'll look for both species, as well as other early butterflies, as we investigate their response to the changing blast zone, and discuss caterpillar food plant preferences, and other aspects of four-winged biology.