A new Milwaukee program gives away free trees, improves health, builds community. Here's how.

Henry Szymanski has walked along the winding paths in Bay View’s Humboldt Park for nearly half a century, taking in the peaceful sounds of the city haven.

But over the past two decades, Szymanski, a retired landscape architect and board member of Humboldt Park Friends, has witnessed the park lose hundreds of trees thanks to pest infestation and severe storms.

Humboldt is far from alone. More than 50,000 trees have been removed across the Milwaukee County Parks System over the past 15 years. The trees have fallen or been cut down, namely due to damage from the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that has decimated ash trees throughout North America.

To combat these losses and restore tree canopy cover throughout Milwaukee, the city has launched the Urban Forestry Fund, a new tree planting program that provides 10 to 50 free trees to residents or neighborhood groups to plant in their location of choice.

They don't have to be pre-existing formal groups. Milwaukee residents can just band together with neighbors and apply to the city’s forestry department. The trees can be planted on private or public property.

Humboldt Park Friends nonprofit organization was the first group selected, planting 10 new trees in Humboldt Park in Bay View earlier this month.

The program will help invigorate the character of neighborhoods around the city and build a better sense of community in the process, Szymanski said.

Here’s what to know about urban forests, the inaugural tree planting in Bay View’s Humboldt Park and how the program will improve tree equity across the city.

Urban forests improve health, provide economic benefits

Urban forests and trees make cities better places to live by improving physical and mental health, providing economic benefits, helping manage stormwater and increasing climate change resilience.

Tree cover cools down cities, providing a shady reprieve during extreme summer heat and reducing the risks of heat-related illness. Trees help offset the urban heat island effect, in which dense concentrations of buildings and pavement absorb and hold onto heat. They also improve air quality by filtering out and dispersing pollutants.

Parks and forested areas in cities allow city dwellers to connect with nature and give people places to gather, exercise and build community.

Many studies show the health benefits of urban trees, but there’s also that feeling of calm when standing next to a mature healthy tree, said Erin Stoekl, an urban forestry district manager with the city of Milwaukee.

Economically, decreasing the risks from extreme heat and pollution can reduce health costs. Cooling and heating costs are often lower in areas where there is more tree cover. Mature trees also increase property values.

Tree planting is considered a nature-based climate change solution. Trees take in carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere and store it within its leaves, trunk and roots.

Extensive, deep root systems from trees allow water to infiltrate into the soil, which can help reduce flooding during severe storms. It’s why stormwater trees are an important type of green infrastructure here in Milwaukee. Fallen leaves and organic material help slow water down, giving it more time to enter the ground.

More: Many Milwaukeeans live in a heat island, and 'we can't air condition our way out of this'

Volunteers must make sure the free trees stay healthy

The goal of the Urban Forestry Fund is to make sure Milwaukeeans have access to all the benefits that tree canopy cover provides.

The program is community-driven from start to finish, Stoekl said. It’s funded by donations from the city’s Combined Giving Campaign as well as from businesses.

Applications will be reviewed twice a year in January and June to plant trees in spring and fall, respectively.

If selected, volunteers can pick from a list of trees to plant in their chosen site. A crew with County Parks helps transport and plant them.

Afterward, the volunteers are in charge of taking care of the trees, which includes watering them, weeding nearby and making sure they stay in good health.

More: Gov. Tony Evers increases Wisconsin's commitment to plant 100 million trees by 2030

Bay View’s Humboldt Park has lost 350 trees in 15 years

The emerald ash borer arrived in the region in earnest in 2009, and has caused the park to lose 350 mature trees.

Earlier this month, Szymanski and other members of the Humboldt Park Friends, as well as a county crew, planted 10 trees on the north side of the park near East Montana Street.

A few years ago, Szymanski watched county crews cut down damaged ash trees in that very spot. He asked the crew for a slice of the biggest ash tree that came down.

When he took it home he counted 148 rings, about one for every year of its life.

The new set of trees that were planted a few weeks ago include hickory, hackberry, Kentucky coffee and tulip trees.

The Friends have already played a big role in replacing hardwood trees throughout Humboldt Park. Between 2019 and 2022, the group raised almost $35,000, which replaced nearly 200 trees that were removed due to disease and weather damage.

The program hopes to provide equal access to tree cover

One goal of the program is to further tree equity, the concept that all residents deserve equal access to tree cover and the health benefits that it provides.

Across the U.S. more than 90% of low-income blocks have less tree cover than higher-income blocks, according to a 2021 study by the Nature Conservancy. The same analysis revealed that communities of color have 33% less tree canopy cover than communities that are majority white residents.

In Milwaukee, one of the country's most segregated cities, historical redlining has pushed communities of color into areas packed with more buildings and concrete, and less green space. These areas become urban heat islands, which can rise up to 11 degrees hotter than the rest of the city, according to a 2023 analysis by Climate Central.

As the program receives more applications, Stoekl said, it will prioritize socially disadvantaged areas where trees are needed the most. And if there isn’t a lot of green space, the trees can be planted in backyards, she said.

More: A new urban forest is growing in Sherman Park. Here's why that's big for the neighborhood

A way to connect with neighbors

Right now, the program has a minimum goal of doing two projects per year. Both Szymanski and Stoekl believe the program will help foster community relationships.

It can start as a casual conversation among neighbors to get more trees on the block, Stoekl said, or it can be businesses, community organizations or church groups.

She stressed that this isn’t a top-down effort where they will tell people what to do.

“We’re partners that are just hoping to help,” she said.

More: Climate change brings rising Lake Michigan water levels. Art Museum, Summerfest, others respond

More: What to know about floodplain forests, a struggling ecosystem on the Mississippi River

Caitlin Looby is a Report for America corps member who writes about the environment and the Great Lakes. Reach her at clooby@gannett.com or follow her on X @caitlooby.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee program provides free trees, builds community, helps health