WE DID IT!!

We fundraised enough to cover all ash trees in the HOLS area for 2023!

Congratulations to everyone involved and we will update the map and this site as soon as we are able to.

WHAT IS HOLS SAVE YOUR ASH?


In 2021, Heart of Lincoln Square (HOLS) conducted a highly successful campaign to inform neighbors about the threat of Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) and give them an opportunity to save the street ash trees by donating to treat them to prevent infestation leading to their death.

The treatment protocol on the pesticide used specifies that the trees should be treated every two years to prevent EAB infestation. Currently the city officials are making promises about bringing this protection back into the budget, but since it’s a re-election year and politicians don’t always keep their promises, we are still waiting for that to happen. Also the proposed amount they are saying is only about 20% of the estimated amount needed to fully protect them throughout the city. So until we see those efforts come to fruition and how that will be dispersed, in the meantime, it is still on our community to protect our local trees.

IT IS TIME AGAIN TO SAVE OUR ASH

Please see the map below with updated pricing from our arborist as to how much it would be to sponsor a specific tree that is close to your heart, or perhaps you saved it in 2021 and you want to keep on protecting it, or just chip in to save ash trees in general that may not end up with have a sponsor. 

Inventory of Ash Trees within HOLS Boundaries

Ash trees are a huge part of Lincoln Square’s beautiful tree canopy – at least 30 percent of it –  347 trees are with our HOLS area alone! How do you know if it’s an ash tree? Well the bark is tight with a distinct pattern of deep diamond-shaped ridges. Or easier yet - there are metal tags on the side facing the street that were from previous years of treatment from the city like below.

Ash trees have metal Chicago Bureau of Forestry tags on the street side from previous years treatments.

We don’t want our trees to be like the untreated tree on the right

the EMERALD ASH BORER is an invisible forest fire

The EAB bores into and implants it’s eggs into the tree so their holes are quite hard to spot with a naked eye. The larvae are then protected by the tree bark as it grows and will then tunnel through the inside of the tree, harming and and essentially starving the tree from the inside out.

Example of a tree with EAB tunnels that have killed it.

However,

The good news is that ash trees can be preserved with a highly effective, inexpensive, and environmentally safe treatment. Since 2009, the city of Milwaukee has not lost a single one of its 26,000 street ash trees to EAB.

Chicago was treating our street ash from 2012 until 2018 but the city ended the program due to a lack of funding. The Save Your Ash Coalition Chicago (SYACC) was formed in 2021 to lobby the city to reinstate funding but that effort had only partial success. The result is that the street ash trees in HOLS will not be treated by the city this year and treatment is due.

SPONSOR AN ASH TREE 

We need to step up where the city government has not and donate to HOLS Save Your Ash to ensure our big, beautiful, plentiful ash trees continue to grace our streets.

If you wish to donate for a specific tree, perhaps one on your block, please check out the map here and put the address of the tree(s) you want to sponsor in the designated text box under the "Amount" section. You can also refer back to the map and put the exact amount of the cost of the treatment as noted as a custom donation. 

The cost to treat a tree will vary depending on how thick their trunk is, but even with the amazing discount our arborist has provided us with, the average price costs $150 per tree. You can save one, two, or several trees with our different levels of donation. They are:

One hundred percent of donated funds will go directly to treating the ash trees. 

Here are some reasons folks have chosen to sponsor:

  • Sponsor the trees near your home or choose others that are important to you, such as those around Winnemac Park. 

  • Honor a friend or loved one by donating in their memory. 

  • Sponsor several trees through your business.

If you are able to, you can also chip in to help us save trees that are not sponsored. Any unspecified donations will be directed towards covering the largest unsponsored trees first down to the smallest. And if we surpass our goal of saving them all, we will earmark any surplus donations towards their future treatment.

Everyone benefits from these trees being a part of our community and it is up to us to save them. 

We Have Mega-Sized Heritage Ash Trees IN Our Backyard

The Mega Sized Heritage Ash Trees are those who have been around for so many decades that they are 90 inches or more in circumference. These trees are marked in purple on the map and cost more to treat so they especially need donations to make sure they continue to thrive.

Donation deadline is July 31st, 2023 in order to be able to treat by this fall.

HELP HOLS SAVE YOUR ASH


Would you like to volunteer to help with this campaign? Great - we need several pairs of feet on the ground to assist us! Please indicate below what you would be able to help with:

 

More Information

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