When the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires tore through Altadena and Pacific Palisades, they took down entire ecosystems in their wake. Now, a student-led movement called TREEAMS is growing them back, starting with 30 trees on a school campus in Pasadena.
TREEAMS: Students launch tree nursery in Jane Goodall’s name
During Earth Week, students from EF Academy Pasadena and Saint Mark’s School established the first TREEAMS nursery on their shared campus, planting 30 native California sycamores and coast live oaks. Over the next two years, the students will tend the trees before transplanting them permanently into Altadena.
The nursery is the opening move in a broader effort to plant 5,000 trees across fire-affected communities over the next five years. Dr. Jane Goodall envisioned TREEAMS before her passing, with students launching it six months ago in a gathering of over 1,000 at EF Academy Pasadena.
Presently, the initiative draws together over 15 schools, 30 student leaders, and over 20 community partners.
The two schools at the center of the first nursery share more than a campus. After the Eaton Fire, EF Academy opened its doors to Saint Mark’s displaced students, and the partnership that formed out of necessity has since become the foundation of something larger.
Local landscaping firm Mariposa Landscapes, Norman’s Nursery, and EPT Design donated materials and expertise to establish the nursery. Meanwhile, Hunter Irrigation System designed and installed the watering infrastructure to keep the young trees healthy through the summer.
For Saint Mark’s students, many of whom remain displaced, the work carries a weight beyond ecology.
“Many of our students are still displaced and navigating what comes next,” said Jennifer Tolbert, Head of School at Saint Marks. “This gives them a way to take part in rebuilding something real, even before they can return home.”
Learning while the trees grow
A closer look at the initiative reveals that the campus nursery pairs with a curriculum that the UCLA School of Education and EcoRise developed together. The curriculum will expose students to reforestation, soil remediation, and ecosystem restoration.
In an interview with Charity Journal, organizers disclosed that Mariposa will monitor the trees through the summer as students learn to tend to them through workshops and afterschool programming launching in the fall.
TREEAMS’ efforts at restoration extend beyond the Pasadena campus. The nonprofit unveiled a newly minted partnership with California State Parks to begin restoring a section of Will Rogers State Historic Park, where students will remove invasive species, map existing trees, and plant natives over a five-year stewardship commitment.
Furthermore, TREEAMS will establish a second planting site along Temescal Canyon Road in Pacific Palisades, working with the Center for Applied Ecological Remediation to tackle fire-related soil contamination through bioremediation.
Organizers told Charity Journal of plans to establish a second nursery in Pacific Palisades in May, with dozens of additional schools tipped to adopt the model in the coming months.
Setting the pace for restoration
The team unveiled plans to publish a guide on its website so that schools can set up their own nurseries without needing to reinvent the process. Speaking with Charity Journal, the team added that the goal is a grassroots spread across LA first, before the framework travels further.
“TREEAMS plans to publish a playbook on www.treams.org for local schools to follow,” said a spokesperson. “Ideally students and teachers will come together acrossf LA to replicate this model on their own school campuses.”
Whether the model holds at scale remains to be seen. For now, the nursery is still young and the five-year planting target is a long horizon. However, the architecture is deliberate: grow the trees where the ground is stable, document what works, and move the forest when the community is ready.