GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — This past weekend, Friends of Grand Rapids Parks announced on Facebook that they’ve reached a tree-planting milestone that’s increased downtown’s urban tree canopy from 5% to 10% since 2017.
“Mayor Bliss and Downtown Grand Rapids Inc., wanted to increase the tree canopy downtown, and the best way to do that was to fill in all the vacancies. So they set a goal of planting, with Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, 1,000 trees downtown. And originally that goal was going to be completed by the end of 2025 and this last week, we completed all the vacancies that we knew about,” said Stacy Bare who serves as the executive director of Friends of Grand Rapids Parks.
Bare credits community and volunteer support for the project being finished a year ahead of schedule, and he says this announcement “great news” for downtown. He says the new trees will help improve air quality, reduce flooding, and reduce temperatures in an area that’s covered with a lot of concrete…