Mindy Maslin, our presenter, was a social worker, community organizer, political and environmental activist in 1991 when she saw taking care of our city’s trees as an opportunity to develop a neighborhood-based citizen stewardship program.

She founded the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) Tree Tenders program in 1993 and continues to lead it with the aim of increasing Philly’s tree canopy from 20% to 30%. PHS has trained more than 5,500 volunteer Tree Tenders, who plant more than 2,000 trees a year in neighborhoods in the Greater Philadelphia area. The program is at the forefront of the urban tree movement across the country. It offers hands-on tree care training covering biology, identification, planting and proper care. Caring for trees, she says, is "a natural way of revitalizing communities.”