New Partnership with IRIS Creates Opportunities for Youth and New Haven’s Tree Canopy
IRIS/URI Tree Ambassador Youth with supervisor Leet Miller (center, wearing a hat).
The doorbell rings. “Ooh, it sounds like someone is home!” We three glance at each other with anticipation. Finally, a young child appears at the door. “Hello! Is there an adult home? My name is Razia and we are wondering if you would like a free tree.” The child measures us up. We are wearing bright yellow safety vests and name tags, carrying clipboards. I have on a baseball hat and short sleeves under my vest, and Razia and Maya are both wearing flowing hijabs and long sleeves and skirts. The child runs to the back of the house to retrieve his mother.
Razia, Maya, and I are canvassing this neighborhood on a hot afternoon in June. They are two of the ten high school students working with Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) whom we have hired as Tree Ambassadors for URI’s GreenSkills tree planting program. Our goal is to identify people who would like URI to plant a free tree in their curb strip and be willing to water it.
URI only plants trees by request and when there is someone willing to water it weekly to ensure the tree survives. Our new partnership with IRIS is thanks to a U.S. Forest Service grant made possible by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which enables URI to plant 500 more trees annually for the next five years. In addition to the 500 trees URI already plants with support from the City of New Haven, the Forest Service grant allows us to double our tree planting efforts, which means we also need to find twice as many tree adopters.
The child returns with his mother, who offers us three cups of cold water. We thank her and explain that we are working for URI and want to know if she’d like to have a free tree planted in front of her home. She is hesitant, but when one of the students points out that the tree will provide shade and help cool her home, the woman agrees to sign up and commits to watering the tree. Not all interactions are this positive, but each time we find a tree adopter our IRIS team gets excited.
Several years of successful canvassing with volunteer Tree Ambassadors gave us confidence to invest in this outreach method. Interacting in-person is a proven strategy for engaging neighbors who would like more trees planted and increased shade in these warming neighborhoods.
Leet Miller (Yale College’24) served as the primary supervisor for the ten IRIS students with my support along with help from recent Yale School of the Environment (YSE) graduate Les Welker. On a typical afternoon, we helped students canvass for three hours, which entailed about 2.5 miles of walking. Under our guidance, the youth canvassed for 281 hours and generated more than 290 new tree requests collectively. That outnumbers requests from any other outreach method this year.
Students from IRIS are particularly skilled at community outreach in New Haven because of their multicultural knowledge and language abilities. The 2024 IRIS Tree Ambassador cohort hailed from several countries and is proficient in as many as eight languages: Pashto, Hindi, Dari, Farsi, Bembe, Swahili, French, and English. Their skills frequently connected URI to a broader range of potential tree adopters. This new partnership with IRIS helps URI more effectively reach and equitably serve more New Haven residents.
Our team uses ArcGIS tree cover data generated by YSE graduate student Erin Shives to plan canvassing routes within the federally determined environmental justice (EJ) communities. The data can help us find streets with the most tree planting opportunities (factoring in existing canopy and street infrastructure). The new requests are concentrated in nine different EJ communities: The Hill, West River, Edgewood, Dwight, Beaver Hills, Newhallville, Dixwell, Fair Haven, and The Annex.
Two IRIS/URI Tree Ambassadors help a resident sign up for a tree.
For the IRIS students, the Tree Ambassador program offered substantial work experience and environmental justice career exploration. Knocking on household and business doors in the summer heat to ask about adopting trees was challenging. The students practiced skills such as verbal communication, teamwork, marketing, navigation through unfamiliar neighborhoods, and professional interaction with strangers. Glad that the students could put these skills toward environmental justice work in their city, IRIS program coordinator Erin Kelly said, “The URI/IRIS partnership has been a great opportunity for environmental education for our students. It is so important for students to participate in hands-on work that contributes positively to their local environment, as it introduces them to a whole world of possible career paths in environmental justice.”
From just five weeks of canvassing, Erin noticed an inspiring shift in several students: heightened self-confidence and a broader understanding of career possibilities. “I also believe there is so much value in having the students feel like they have a say in what happens in their local environment, especially those who have maybe just moved here over the last few years and don’t quite feel as if they have the right to these decisions as much as others may. It is empowering not only for themselves and their own self-confidence, but also to New Haven as a community,” she added.
The URI/IRIS Tree Ambassador program will continue supporting youth to integrate into their new communities by equipping them to take part in transforming the landscape with trees and having a tangible positive impact in their new home country.