Due to the TREEmendous ongoing success of The ChariTree Foundation’s children’s tree program, Love Trees is hoping to expand this formula beyond Canada to children’s camps around the world.
For the last six years, Andrea Koehle Jones, Executive Director of Love Trees and the ChariTREE Foundation, has given thousands of free trees to children at Canadian Camping Association camps.
Andrea is a former Camp Mi-A-Kon-Da program director and waterfront director and a recipient of the Canadian Camping Association’s Award of Excellence for her environmental education program that gives trees to children at summer camps across Canada. She says summer camps offer wonderful opportunities for children to get outside in nature and learn how they can help make the world a better place. When campers receive a locally-sourced tree to plant, they get to return each summer to see how their tree has grown plus because she calls these trees Wish Trees, children can make a wish for the planet when they plant their tree.
Last summer, campers at more than 75 camps across Canada planted a total of 20,000 trees! So far, the program has only been available to camps in Canada. Andrea is researching to see if it is possible to offer children trees at outdoor camps affiliated with the International Camping Fellowship in places like India, China or various countries in Africa, Central and South America.