Volunteers of the Year 2018

Tree Pitts­burgh is proud to announce our Vol­un­teers of the Year! Every year, Tree Pitts­burgh rec­og­nizes the indi­vid­u­als, com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions, and busi­ness­es who vol­un­teer their time to aid our mission.

We would like to con­grat­u­late Jeff Irwin for being named our Her­itage Nurs­ery Vol­un­teer of the Year! He is a Tree Ten­der, a vol­un­teer, and a Tree Pitts­burgh donor. As our Her­itage Nurs­ery vol­un­teer of the year, Jeff vol­un­teered 47 hours in 2018 – always with a smile and an eager­ness to learn! In addi­tion to his work at the Her­itage Nurs­ery, Jeff has vol­un­teered at numer­ous oth­er prun­ing work­shops and mulching par­ty events with Tree Pitts­burgh, show­ing his obvi­ous ded­i­ca­tion to the organization.

Vol­un­teer of the Year Neal Heiss came to Tree Pitts­burgh and our Vol­un­teer For­est Stew­ards Pro­gram through Pitts­burgh Cares and the Retired Senior Vol­un­teer Pro­gram (RSVP). Imme­di­ate­ly after being intro­duced to his for­est stew­ard site in Pol­ish Hill’s West Penn Park, he jumped right in to lend a hand. Neal has helped with inva­sive vine man­age­ment as well as young tree main­te­nance and care. Dur­ing one sea­son of for­est stew­ard­ship, Neal vis­it­ed his site over 25 times and put in over 60 hours of vol­un­teer labor to keep the site in tip-top shape. We have been work­ing in West Penn Park for near­ly 5 years, and Neal’s hard main­te­nance work has allowed our staff to focus on oth­er aspects of the site.

This year, we’re also rec­og­niz­ing A Few Bad Apples for their ded­i­ca­tion to Tree Pitts­burgh. Mike and the rest of the A Few Bad Apples team have poured their deli­cious cider at Tree Pitts­burgh events almost as long as the orga­ni­za­tion has been around. A Few Bad Apples uses apples, mul­ber­ry, and knotweed, among oth­er inva­sives, that would nor­mal­ly go to waste and fer­ment it into cider. We are thank­ful to Mike and his team for pro­mot­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty and their con­tin­ued sup­port of Tree Pitts­burgh over the years. And, of course, for all the tasty brews.

Our cor­po­rate part­ner of the year is BNY Mel­lon. Over the course of 2018, BNY Mel­lon vol­un­teers con­tributed to three of our tree care events. The BNY Mel­lon Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship pro­gram has made a dona­tion to Tree Pitts­burgh for pro­gram sup­port. Our main con­tact, Craig Kor­nick, act­ed as For­est Stew­ard in West Penn Park, ded­i­cat­ing a sig­nif­i­cant amount of his per­son­al time to Tree Pitts­burgh, result­ing in an addi­tion­al dona­tion from BNY Mel­lon to hon­or his efforts.

Tree Pitts­burgh thanks each of these vol­un­teers – indi­vid­u­als, groups, and busi­ness­es – for their ded­i­ca­tion to our urban for­est. We were pleased to hon­or them at our Vol­un­teer Recog­ni­tion and Hol­i­day Par­ty at our new cam­pus on the Alleghe­ny Riv­er Wednes­day, Decem­ber 5. In addi­tion to our appre­ci­a­tion, each hon­oree received a plaque and was added to the vol­un­teer recog­ni­tion plaque that hangs in our offices to com­mem­o­rate their hard work.