Buy a live holiday tree to benefit Lake County fire victims

Kathy Blair is asking area residents to “plant it forward” again this year by buying a living Christmas tree and donating it after the holidays to fire-devastated residents of Lake County.

Last year’s tree-gifting program blasted past Blair’s expectations that maybe 50 people would help, as nearly 900 living trees were donated and distributed to residents who lost their homes in the 2015 Valley fire.

The effort got so big, Blair, a Cobb resident, broadened it this year to those whose homes were destroyed in the Clayton fire that blackened 3,929 acres in August and destroyed 189 homes in Lower Lake. A year earlier, just to the west, the Valley fire charred 76,067 acres, destroyed 1,281 homes and killed at least four people. The body of a suspected fifth victim has not been found.

Blair’s campaign started out as a single live-tree gift to a friend and has now become a massive seasonal project for her and her sister, Chris Hurley.

It works like this:

Buy a live, potted Christmas tree at one of 10 participating nurseries in Sonoma, Lake or Mendocino counties. Return it to the nursery after you’re done.

Blair and Hurley, and their crew of volunteers, will then pick them up and distribute them to homeowners whose land was blackened by the fires.

Residents who would like the trees should sign up by emailing the organizers or messaging them through the Lake County Gifting a Tree Project page on Facebook.

Trees will be picked up from nurseries in January and made available in mid-February for pick-up by their new owners.

“Last year when I started the project, I had no idea how it was going to go over, and it just took off,” Blair said.

People kept calling through April and into early May with trees they wanted to donate, she said, and they picked them up. Blair kept the trees in her large back yard, which at one point looked like a tree farm.

“It was building so much momentum, we thought it could carry through a few years,” Hurley said. “It’s been great to see all the continued support.

“What it really boiled down to was demand. A lot of people are still in limbo with their plans to rebuild, and a lot of people weren’t ready last year, it was too soon. … There is still a need for the greenery and the growth to make it look beautiful again.”

Blair said the project is a win-win-win-win for those involved.

“The nurseries won, because they all sold out. The people who gifted the tree win because they felt like they were giving to a worthy cause and to a very devastated community,” she said. “Then, people who receive the trees were just overwhelmed with gratitude to get the trees. And we win: my community was devastated and this helps.”

They’ve streamlined the project in its second year, deciding to ask purchasers to return their trees to the nursery instead of volunteers picking up individual trees like last year.

If that’s a hassle, Blair said many people last year bought an additional tree and left it at the nursery to be picked up. Others bought different kinds of trees, fruit trees or ornamentals, or other native evergreens. And some people donated money at the nurseries.

“You can just drop $5 in the pot,” Blair said. “It all adds up.”

She said two or three nurseries received more than $1,000 in cash donations, which was then used to buy more trees from that nursery.

“It really gave people a different sense of what to do with their Christmas trees. To buy a live tree for Christmas, then to have it live its life in another place, really gave people a sense of happiness,” Hurley said.

The project is a gifting program to help residents landscape their property, not a reforestation project, Blair cautioned. And, although any money raised goes to buy new trees, it is not a nonprofit agency where donations are tax-deductible.

A corporate sponsor hasn’t come forward yet, but Calpine, the electricity supplier that operates The Geysers thermal fields in Lake County, has donated some funds to offset the costs of transporting donated trees.

Harmony Farm Supply and Nursery in Sebastopol is participating again this year, co-owner Leah Taylor said.

“We had so much fun doing it last year,” she said. “It’s a great cause and is so fun.”