The Walt Disney Company announced a grant of $1.5 million to TreePeople,
a non-profit organization, to help reforest fire-ravaged areas in the
mountains surrounding greater Los Angeles. Under TreePeople’s
California Wildfire Restoration Initiative, of which Disney is the
biggest financial supporter, thousands of volunteers will plant an
estimated 60,000 new trees over the next three years.
“It’s a great way
for Disney to give back to the community that we have called home for
the last 85 years,” said Disney President and
CEO Robert A. Iger, who added the gift “is
right in line with Disney’s own environmental
policies, which seek to maintain sustainable strategies for minimizing
our impact and encouraging and activating others to be environmentally
responsible.”
“Because of the foresight and generosity of
Disney, we are going to be able to send thousands of people, including
students, up to the mountains to restore the burned areas,”
said Andy Lipkis, TreePeople founder and president. “Just
as these forests have been sending rivers of clean water to the city for
all these years, the city can now be sending a river of human hands and
caring back to them.”
Disney announced its gift at TreePeople’s
21st annual “An Evening under the Harvest Moon”
last Saturday. The event honored Disney’s
previous work to plant and care for trees and to educate kids about the
urban environment and stewardship of natural resources. Earlier this
year, Disney, with a $250,000 grant and the support of its VoluntEARS
launched with TreePeople an initiative to green Los Angeles school
campuses parks and other spaces where children gather in support of the
city’s Million Trees LA initiative.
One of the world’s main media and
entertainment companies, Disney has been involved in environmental
causes for over 60 years when Walt Disney himself began making
award-winning nature documentaries. For the last twenty years, Disney’s
Environmental Affairs team has worked to establish and sustain a
positive environmental legacy for Disney and for future generations
through a wide variety of programs and policies.
Started by teenagers in the 1970s, TreePeople has planted more than two
million trees in the LA area with the help of hardworking volunteers. As
acknowledged leaders in the U.S. Citizen Forestry movement, TreePeople
supports residents, students, government agencies, business and
neighborhoods by providing the tools to take environmental action in
their communities. TreePeople’s recent
project to help restore the fire-damaged mountains of Southern
California is its most ambitious yet.
The Walt Disney Company
Jonathan Friedland, 818-569-8306
Jonathan.friedland@disney.com
or
TreePeople
Laurie
Kaufman, 818-623-4851
lkaufman@treepeople.org
