Penn Hills Shade Tree Commission coordinates planting of more trees on Rodi Road
Share this post:
With fall in full swing, the Rodi Road corridor didn’t exactly get greener on Oct. 28, but it did get 18 new trees through a volunteer effort coordinated by the Penn Hills Shade Tree Commission.
Since October of last year, the commission has planted 31 trees along Rodi Road with the help of TreeVitalize Pittsburgh, an application-based tree planting program that offers trees, materials and expertise to interested communities. The program has helped plant 38,500 trees across 57 municipalities in Allegheny County since 2008 “in an effort to improve the quality of life and the environment in the Pittsburgh region,” according to its website.
But once TreeVitalize digs the holes, the rest is up to hard working volunteers like Kathleen Kaczka, who helped stake and fence the trees that Saturday.
“They’re hard to plant because they’re very heavy,” Kaczka said. “It takes like four or five people to get it in the hole.”
Planting trees isn’t easy, but a turnout of around 30 volunteers meant the work went by quicker than Penn Hills Shade Tree Commission president Kathy Raborn expected.
A better turnout also gave Raborn a bigger crowd of residents to educate on the benefits of beautifying the corridor, which she said go beyond just looks.
“[Trees] have a host of environmental benefits, whether it’s absorbing storm water, absorbing carbon, cooling our air temperatures — it just goes on and on,” Raborn said. “They also have all the economic benefits … people are willing to pay more for parking, pay more for goods and services and spend more time in shopping districts that have a well-landscaped area.”
The municipality, which created the commission in 2017 and appoints its members, has agreed to prune, water and accept liability for the trees. Earlier this year, it also built a shed for the commission and made an out-of-service Department of Public Works truck available to help with projects.
While Raborn hopes for more greenery near Rodi Road in the future, she said the commission will turn its attention this spring to maintaining the hundreds of trees it has planted in front yards and parks across Penn Hills. Raborn added that the commission will seek help from TreeVitalize again in 2025, taking a year off to allow the Allegheny River Boulevard Preservation Association to apply instead.
For Kaczka, there’s a certain pride in getting her hands dirty to improve the place she calls home. Even a morning drizzle takes on new meaning.
“You get ownership in your community,” Kaczka said. “I woke up thinking those trees are doing well because the rain is helping them out.”