2023: By the Numbers

Dubuque Trees Forever plants trees in our community while connecting with organizations and residents to increase knowledge and understanding about the benefits trees provide.

In 2023, we celebrated our 7th year by reorganizing our board to include a volunteer executive director to create more centralized and sustainable administration. In 2023, we also focused on tree care, including mulching, watering and pruning. We presented two seminars in partnership with the Sustainable Dubuque Tree Voucher program, providing knowledge as well as watering buckets and take-home instructions.

We continued to grow our volunteer base, increased the number of partner organizations, strengthened relationships with corporate partners, and secured funding from a variety of sources to support our work.

2023: By the Numbers is presented below as a high level overview of this year’s achievements.

  • 720 volunteer hours

    +59 hours non-planting time (meetings and events)

    +231 tree care hours

    +430 planting hours

    =720 Total volunteer hours

  • 3 Awards

    Outstanding Organization Award: Dubuque Trees Forever won the 2023 Outstanding Organization award from Trees Forever in Marion, IA.

    Outstanding Civic Partner Award: Executive Director Laura Roussell won the 2023 Outstanding Civic Partner Award from the Iowa Urban Tree Council.

    Wreaths of Hope Competition: 2nd place in the Diamond Jo Casino Wreaths of Hope competition. Ours was designed by VP Barb Liska.

  • 320 Volunteers

    320 volunteers joined us to plant trees in Dubuque in 2023. Some of these volunteers helped out on more than one occasion, which, to us, is a sign that they had a good experience and want to support our work. We also had many first-time planters that are now trained and ready to help in the future. Together we are building a large group of experienced volunteers to make each project even better.

  • 1st Annual Arbor Day Celebration

    We held our first Arbor Day Celebration in Washington Park – Our event included the planting of 3 trees, coloring contest and tree-related activities for families.

    Click here to view a video of the day’s events.

  • 154 Trees Planted | 316 Trees Pruned | New Focus on Tree Care

    We planted 154 trees throughout the community including 11 city parks, along the lower Bee Branch Trail and street trees throughout the community.

    Our Education Coordinator, Steve Pregler, pruned 316 of our newly planted trees to help get them off to a good start. We increased our tree care hours ten-fold from last year because of our new trailer that we purchased thanks to a grant from the DRA.