Interview with Caryn from Ojai Trees

Caryn Bosson at the CREW office.

In addition to being our Green Valley Project Advisor, Caryn is an incredible member of the organization Ojai Trees and an avid environmental activist in Ventura County. The Green Valley Project has decided to partner with Ojai Trees and the C.R.E.W in order to start our project “Re-Oaking Ojai”. If you would like to follow and support Re-Oaking Ojai please visit the Re-Oak Ojai Page.

C: In a couple of sentences, what is Ojai Trees?

I: It is a volunteer group that brings people together to plant and care for trees in the Ojai Valley. To grow our community forest.

C: Have you always been passionate about conservation and what led you into this kind of work specifically?

I: Well, gosh it’s kind of a long story but I’ll just say that I was born in Los Angeles and when I was in my early 20’s, I got involved with a new group called TreePeople and I started volunteering for them and planting trees. It felt so great that I basically decided that was how I was going to spend my life, working for the environment. I was working in Hollywood at the time and I thought, ‘is this all life is? Just working to make money?’ That wasn’t enough for me. I really needed to work for something larger than myself. I really resonated with trees. Especially at that time in the City, it was really bare and smoggy and ugly and I felt like I was making a difference that you could see and feel.

C: Why do you think for you and Ojai Trees it’s important to partner with a small youth organization like GVP (Green Valley Project)?

I: The saying is that the youth are our future but, so you know, by taking leadership in this project you are developing the ability to do big powerful things for our environment, and we all need your generation to be involved. Tree planting is a great beginning, something everybody can play a part in. I know that the youth of Ojai, especially the Youth Council, is going to take this project and make it the beginning of big things that you all are going to do.

C: Do you think you can give me just a little more insight about what Ojai Trees is actually doing for GVP? How is this partnership actually working?

I: Yeah, it’s going to be explained in the brochure, but basically, Ojai Trees plants trees for people in Ojai, in their yards, on their properties four times a year. It’s been about a hundred trees a year on average. So, in this partnership, we are joining forces with GVP. Ojai Trees will pay for the oak tree, either species – Coast Live Oak or Valley Oak – and get a six-foot-tall tree and all the supplies, and organize the planting of these trees. That’s what Ojai Trees does. But what Green Valley Project is going to do is make more people aware of how important it is to have more trees in our community and hopefully inspire people to give homes to 15 new trees in the Ojai Valley this fall just by knocking on doors. With GVP communicating the importance and the excitement, the beauty and the benefits of having these trees, there will be 50 new oak trees contributing to our community forest.  Ojai Trees already does this, but in partnership with GVP we’re going to get a whole bunch more people excited about planting trees.

(We have actually increased our number of trees to 50!)

C: What would you say to somebody who, like most of the kids before they joined GVP, is looking for a way to get more involved in their local community or local environment but doesn’t really know where to start?

I: Well, I have to say they should start with GVP.  An easy way to get started is Outdoor Saturdays, one great offering of the Green Valley Project. It’s open to anybody in the whole Ojai Valley. Teenagers are especially welcome and it’ll be mostly teenagers there but adults and families can also join.  I know there are going to be some awesome projects coming up on Outdoor Saturdays.  So the first thing would be getting involved in the tree planting project because the tree planting is going to be on two Saturdays - one in October and one in November - and anybody can be involved in that.  The Green Valley Project will be getting people to sign the Order Form and order the trees for themselves, but then volunteers from Green Valley Project and Ojai Trees will be the ones who plant the trees on those two Saturdays.

C: Is where should people learn more about Ojai Trees if they want to learn more about what you guys are doing?

I: They should go to our website, OjaiTrees.org.