Volunteers of the Year 2020

We want to take the time to thank the peo­ple, orga­ni­za­tions, and part­ners who helped make 2020 a bit brighter — our Vol­un­teers of the Year! Despite the chal­lenges this year pre­sent­ed, Tree Pitts­burgh still had help from vol­un­teers and part­ners to make our work possible.

Indi­vid­ual Vol­un­teer of the Year — Eliz­a­beth Glowczewski
We would like to con­grat­u­late Eliz­a­beth Glow­czews­ki for being named Tree Pittsburgh’s Vol­un­teer of the Year! Eliz­a­beth has been a Tree Ten­der since 2012 and stepped up to the plate this year by inde­pen­dent­ly mulching and weed­ing street trees through­out her neigh­bor­hood of High­land Park, and the sur­round­ing East Lib­er­ty area. Her ded­i­ca­tion to sum­mer tree care allowed her to care for over 35 street trees in the city. In addi­tion to her tree care work this year, Eliz­a­beth has vol­un­teered at past prun­ing work­shops and mulching par­ty events with Tree Pitts­burgh. We all appre­ci­ate her com­mit­ment to tree main­te­nance, espe­cial­ly while COVID-19 has added lim­i­ta­tions to our vol­un­teer program. 

Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner of the Year- Pitts­burgh Pub­lic Schools
Tree Pitts­burgh would like to thank and rec­og­nize the Pitts­burgh Pub­lic Schools as our Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner for 2020. Dur­ing a time of much dif­fi­cul­ty for both schools and the fam­i­lies, we were able to part­ner and bring tree plant­i­ng to PPS schools. Specif­i­cal­ly this year, we were able to plant trees and engage with Pitts­burgh Green­field K‑8, Schiller 6–8, Miller PreK‑5, Per­ry Tra­di­tion­al Acad­e­my, Arse­nal, Spring Hill K‑5, and Mor­row PreK‑8. We were able to plant 440 trees on behalf of stu­dents; trees that will have a huge impact on the urban for­est and cli­mate of our city in years to come. We also had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with a few stu­dents in tree care and plant­i­ng, with social dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols. Thank you, PPS, for your sup­port of the One Tree Per Child Pro­gram in your schools. We look for­ward to deep­er and more mean­ing­ful engage­ments in the future.

Cor­po­rate Vol­un­teer – Danc­ing Gnome Brewery
As a long­time sup­port­er of our mis­sion through gen­er­ous dona­tions, Danc­ing Gnome Brew­ery and Tree Pitts­burgh set out in col­lab­o­ra­tion to bring trees and beer togeth­er in a unique series of beers cel­e­brat­ing local trees. For 12 months, Pitts­burgh trees were high­light­ed using one-of-a-kind can labels that peel open to show­case tree art­work and tree facts. The cans and the infor­ma­tion inside (pro­vid­ed by Tree Pitts­burgh) intro­duced thou­sands of cit­i­zens to the urban for­est and the mis­sion of Tree Pitts­burgh. Con­tin­ued sup­port through­out the year edu­cat­ing the pub­lic on trees while pro­mot­ing Tree Pitts­burgh led to a month­ly video series high­light­ing each tree, and these videos have been enjoyed and viewed by tens of thou­sands of peo­ple in Pitts­burgh and beyond. Thank you, Danc­ing Gnome Brew­ery staff, for your con­tin­ued ded­i­ca­tion and support!