Plant Five for Life has a mission to connect children and families with nature from birth. Our core program gifts five trees to every child born in area hospitals and matches them to sites in need of ecological and social services near their home.

We believe that a child and a community of trees can grow alongside one another and teach about life, nurture and care. Trees provide for every child's health as a support system: giving cleaner air, cleaner water, comfort through shade and cooling, food and social opportunity, and places to gather and celebrate. 

Starting in April, we piloted this vision by planting 5,000 trees as a gift to 1,000 children born at Magee-Womens Hospital. The trees are restoring a former coal mine site to forest at Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. Families joined a planting celebration in October and had the opportunity to meet parents in their community with children the same age.

Following our successful planting and engagement efforts in the fall was a series of events and plantings in the spring. In April we planted trees with Winchester Thurston elementary schoolchildren and their families in Frick Park. On May 4th, we co-hosted the creation of the largest urban orchard in the country, planting over 200 trees at the Hilltop Urban Farm in partnership with the Farm and the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. Our community engagement events included two storybook readings at Patagonia Pittsburgh, a book reading and tree giveaway with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom co-author John Archambault,  as well as an informational event in collaboration with Green Mountain Energy.

More community events are in the works for the summer, and tree planting at new sites will recommence with the fall planting season.

With your contribution, we can better expand our reach to a variety of sites and neighborhoods throughout the city and county, and give this gift of life to all children born all year round. We are raising funds from a variety of sources, but contributions from individuals are a meaningful show of support while we continue to work with foundations and grant-makers and develop our model to sustain a gift of trees to children long into the future.