Over the past five years, our partners at the East Hollywood Business Improvement District (EHBID), The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, Hollywood Hotel, The Los Angeles Beautification Team (LABT), Million Trees LA and Street Tree Seminar have been hard at work improving East Hollywood by investing from the ground up.
In March of this year, the Invest From the Ground campaign joined local partners in enhancing East Hollywood by raising awareness about the benefits of trees for both local business and public health. Through local outreach, events, and media such as presence at Farmers market and bus bench and transit shelter signs, we have been sharing important information on how trees help communities thrive. Trees can actually improve businesses’ bottom lines by drawing in more customers, who are willing to pay more, stay longer and return more often. You can learn more about how trees will help East Hollywood businesses and health with our informative brochure specifically on this topic.
On June 1st, our partners held a tree planting event that finalized the Million Trees L.A. donation to East Hollywood’s Vermont Avenue— Our 13 trees brought the total to 101 trees!
On June 4th, we hosted a Business Improvement Forum at the Hollywood Hotel. This exciting evening was attended by 56 local business owners, public health professionals, government officials, and urban forestry professionals. Special thanks to the Hollywood Hotel for providing the beautiful venue and full buffet dinner. Local businesses, Street Tree Seminar and Invest From the Ground Up also provided fun raffle prizes.
The highlight of the evening was our two speakers, respected leading experts on the benefits of trees: Dr. Kathleen Wolf of the University of Washington spoke on how businesses can turn trees into higher profits and happier customers. Our audience learned a lot and post-survey results showed a 25% improvement on agreement with the statement that was that “caring for trees improves business.” Click here to view Dr. Wolf’s presentation.
Dr. Dick Jackson of UCLA, a Pediatrician and Chair of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA’s School of Public Health, addressed how the built environment can stop the costly health problems we face. This successful evening of networking and learning sparked impassioned discussion and we hope it will trigger even more tree-ing action in East Hollywood!
Here is what some of the attendees said post-forum:
“Awesome speakers!!” “Great Project!” “Very informational, honored to listen to everyone speak” “Have more events on this topic” “Great speakers” “Great Seminar”
If you live in East Hollywood, keep an eye out for our Invest From the Ground Up materials popping up on bus benches, transit shelters, store windows, and billboards around Vermont Street. If you like what you see, turn it into more well-maintained trees to help make Vermont Street the greenest corridor in LA!