Our Mission
Our Stats to Date
91,688 Total Saplings Planted
528 Total Schools
8,336 Total Volunteers
Our Mission
Tree-Plenish is committed to fostering constructive environmental and social change. We strive to educate the students that participate in our tree planting events about sustainability and climate justice. We want our events to spark new conversations and inspire students to continue making change in their communities.
Through collaboration, we aim to pass on the torch of environmental leadership on to new leaders in sustainability!
Our Story
During their senior year of high school, Sethu and Lizzy wanted to do something to positively impact the environment. They reflected on the amount of paper they had used throughout their years of schooling and decided to plant trees to offset the amount of paper used in their high school in an academic year. Some quick calculations told them that 230 trees would need to be planted to reach this goal. Rather than planting the trees on their own, they wanted to involve the community so that everyone would think a little more about the ways we impact our environment and how we might be more sustainable. They advertised this event to the residents of Mansfield with the options of ordering trees to be planted in people’s yards and volunteering to plant trees on the day of the event. That May, about 40 volunteers planted 330 trees around the town of Mansfield.
After seeing the enthusiasm from their town and helping another local school host a similar event, Sethu and Lizzy realized this idea may be something other schools were interested in. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic hit that spring, so no events were held, but Sethu and Lizzy spent the summer thinking about how to expand their mission to other schools. They turned their senior project idea into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called Tree-Plenish and recruited 25 other college students to help out with marketing, day-to-day operations, and mentoring high school students through hosting their own community tree-planting events. With an original goal of 10 schools in Massachusetts, the Tree-Plenish team exceeded its expectations and worked with 85 schools across 20 states.
Past Directors
Caroline Sprenkle
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Past Director of Strategy & Communications (2020-23)
Cynthia Wang
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Past Director of Technology (2021-23)
Justin Miller
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Past Director of Technology (2020-22)
Lizzy Elsner
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Past Executive Director & Co-Founder (Founded 2019)
Matt Katz
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Past Director of Operations (2020-21)
Sarayu Manikandan
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Past Director of Mentorship (2020-21)
Sethu Odayappan
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Past Executive Director & Co-Founder (Founded 2019)
Looking Ahead
We can't wait to continue expanding Tree-Plenish events to more schools across the country and keep empowering students to create more sustainable and equitable communities! We also plan to continue growing our internship program and expanding access to our tree planting events through our Environmental Equity Fund. Check out the rest of our website to learn more about these programs!