SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States; 22,000 new residents moved there last year alone. And with heat indexes reaching 117 degrees Fahrenheit this past summer, it is also one of the hottest. While summer heat waves may appear to sweep across the country indiscriminately, there are many socioeconomic factors that consistently determine who faces the brunt of extreme heat. Historical and enduring discriminatory policies have led to a correlation between low-income communities of color and little-to-no tree canopy cover, forfeiting the many cooling benefits trees provide to those neighborhoods. American Forests calls the work to counter these damaging inequities Tree Equity.

Luckily, San Antonio communities are banding together to change this injustice, and with support from Microsoft, American Forests is proud to help initiate a community of practice among them. American Forests has a long history of developing place-based partnerships to build community trust and investment while gaining the invaluable expertise of those who know their community’s needs the best. In San Antonio, American Forests has partnered with three local organizations working to bring Tree Equity to their city: Garcia St. Urban Farm, Bexar (pronounced “bare”) Branches Alliance and American Youthworks’ Texas Conservation Corps.

Garcia St. Urban Farm, tucked into a residential neighborhood of San Antonio’s historically marginalized Eastside, is the product of a unique partnership between San Antonio College and Opportunity Home San Antonio, the city’s housing authority. The college’s Eco Centro Sustainability Center founded the farm in 2019 on land that was once a large low-income housing complex in an area now designated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a food desert, with an aim to bring both access to fresh food and tree canopy back to the community. Over the past five years, the farm has provided fresh produce for sale to the community and educational events on home gardening and cooking with fresh food. Any produce left over from its farm stands is donated to San Antonio College’s advocacy center, which helps support the nearly 60% of students there who are food insecure.

Garcia St. Urban Farm began partnering with American Forests in 2022 to facilitate an on-site fruit- and shade-tree planting project aimed to help recover some of the community’s lost tree canopy while also providing fresh produce.

“Bringing American Forests into the project provided a direct link to invaluable expertise which in turn ensured we could accomplish our goals,” says Cindy Sullivan, who works with the college’s foundation. Along with expertise in project management and tree science, American Forests brings a network of local experts to its place- based partners to foster communities of support for the collective long-term goal of achieving Tree Equity.

“We have a really good community garden network, but it doesn’t always include tree knowledge,” explains Rose Flores, director of Garcia St. Urban Farm. So, American Forests connected the farm with Bexar Branches Alliance, a local organization with deep community connections and experience hosting large-scale tree plantings.

Bexar Branches, founded in 2021, is dedicated to preserving and expanding the tree canopy of the greater San Antonio region. With programs to bring tree care to under-resourced communities and hands-on education projects that inspire young minds, the organization thrives at fostering an unquantifiable sense of community. In three short years, Bexar Branches has connected with school districts, local experts and neighboring county officials, and now represents San Antonio as a delegate on the Texas Urban Forestry Congress. As founder Jaci Randel explains, each project starts with information-sharing, listening to and learning from a community’s needs, and then “collaboratively coming up with a plan to achieve our common goals.”

American Forests experienced this approach first-hand when partnering with Bexar Branches to help plant nearly 250 trees at two target elementary schools. Bexar Branches started working with a local school district in 2021 to counter the impacts that extreme heat was having on the most vulnerable schools in the district. “Our kids couldn’t go outside and play on the playgrounds because they were too hot to touch,” says Randel. Adding tree cover can reduce the surrounding air temperature by as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit, making those spaces more usable and safer. So, over the course of the 2023/2024 school year, they planted over 500 trees at five elementary schools, engaging 850 students in the process and providing access to green space that is incredibly important, given that it can help improve test scores, regardless of economic status. Staff from Garcia St. Urban Farm volunteered at one of the events to gain a sense for large-scaletree-planting events while supporting the community effort. And, when it was time for Garcia St. Urban Farm to host its own fruit-tree planting event, representatives from Bexar Branches joined in to return the favor.

Events like these, often with more than 100 students, teachers, school staff and community volunteers working together to plant up to 100 trees at a time, would not be as successful without the support of volunteers from the Texas Conservation Corps, a program of American Youthworks. A key partner of American Forests’ Career Pathways Initiative, the Texas Conservation Corps introduces young people interested in conservation to potential careers in the field, such as urban forestry. Having trained and experienced Corps members who understand how to work well with students at these events is crucial to their success.

“Having more knowledgeable people on site guiding and helping the volunteers relieved some of the pressure on our small staff,” says Flores of Garcia St. Urban Farm. Bexar Branches was so impressed that when the organization was ready to hire tree- care and maintenance staff, it found a new employee in a long-term Texas Conservation Corps volunteer.

Confronting systemic discrimination in the face of a global climate crisis is a daunting task, and the communities of San Antonio have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of a supportive community of practice. “It can be really lonely out there when you’re trying to get ideas, and in the past, there wasn’t this community aspect of it,” says Flores.

Through the hard work of community leaders like these, that is starting to change. “The work happening across the country, supported by American Forests, has shown us that diverse and collaborative tree programs focused on sustainability are achievable here,” adds Randel. “By learning from the success of other organizations, we’ve adapted similar initiatives locally with great results. These programs bring together community members, volunteers, local governments, nonprofits and businesses, building a strong network of partnerships that promote urban greening, conservation and long-term environmental stewardship.”

Tree-planting events in the area expecting 40 volunteers have grown to nearly 100. Students from elementary to high school are not only joining in, but also staying late to help clean up and track the trees’ progress long after they have been planted.

“We have met families that weren’t connected with any specific organization,” says Flores. “They just heard that there was a tree planting, and they wanted to come out. For me, that’s the biggest connection, because this is something that San Antonio has been needing.” The network of support that has formed around this common drive is as lush and diverse as the tree canopy they are working to bring back to the San Antonio region. As the measurable impacts of these organizations’ efforts ripple out, they create a depth of Tree Equity impact that is greater than the sum of its measurable parts.

Laurel Watkins is a freelance writer based in San Diego who focuses on science communication and environmental justice.