Photos by Ella Manthey
Trees are at the heart of Forest ReLeaf of Missouri’s mission, but the organization’s work has grown far beyond planting them. Since 2021, Forest ReLeaf has expanded its nursery operation, increased the number of trees it grows and distributes, and developed new ways to connect St. Louis communities with the benefits of a healthy urban forest.
That work has taken on new urgency following the May 2025 tornado, which destroyed mature trees across the city and underscored the importance of a healthy tree canopy in every neighborhood. Forest ReLeaf responded by helping communities recover while thinking strategically about what comes next, from planting larger trees in neighborhoods with limited canopies to creating new programs around tree maintenance, education, and community engagement.
Today, the organization is growing roughly 25,000 trees at its Creve Coeur Park nursery and expanding its presence in the city through a new tree farm at the Scott Joplin House. Its ReLeaf St. Louis program has also grown into a full-time operation focused on helping newly planted trees survive.
We recently caught up with Forest ReLeaf executive director Meridith McAvoy Perkins discusses the organization’s evolution, the lessons of the tornado, and why its future may be as much about growing people and communities as it is growing trees.
Tell us about how Forest ReLeaf of Missouri has grown in the past few years.
A lot has evolved, but the core mission hasn’t changed: We grow healthy, native, resilient trees and make them available to planting partners across the state. We want to remove barriers to taking action on issues like climate change, cooling, and the challenges facing our region.
Since 2021, we’ve expanded our nursery operation at Creve Coeur Park and are building additional space to grow larger trees. We realized that while small trees work for many projects, environmental justice work and planting in vulnerable neighborhoods often require larger trees.
We’re now growing about 25,000 trees at the nursery, a record for us, and we’ve continued to increase our annual distributions. We’re hoping to distribute close to 18,000 trees this year.
You’ve also expanded access to the organization beyond the nursery. What’s behind that effort?
After COVID, we realized the nursery had become an important engagement space, but it was in St. Louis County and wasn’t easily accessible to everyone. So, we’ve partnered with Missouri State Parks at the Scott Joplin House to create a city tree farm.
The vision is for it to be a satellite nursery focused on engagement — connecting people with nature, showing them where their trees come from, and involving them in the growing process. We’ve already grown our first 1,000 trees there, and we’re hoping to eventually grow 3,000 to 5,000 trees on the site.
It’s about creating a more local connection to our programming. Kids could come on a school field trip, volunteer at the tree farm, and then return in the spring to plant those trees at their school, a community garden or somewhere in their neighborhood.
We’ve also increased our staffing around outreach and education because the barrier to getting trees in the ground isn’t just having a healthy tree — it’s having the confidence to choose and plant the right tree for the right reason in the right place.
Why is it particularly important to focus on tree canopy in communities where that hasn’t historically been embedded in neighborhood planning?
People who live around healthy trees often take them for granted. They see them as a beautiful green backdrop without necessarily thinking about all the benefits they provide. But when we lose trees — whether from the emerald ash borer, development, or other threats — people suddenly notice. Their patios are hotter. Parks feel more barren. Their experience of their neighborhood changes.
And it’s not just about beauty. Trees provide shade, stormwater mitigation, and cleaner air. There’s also an economic value that isn’t always on people’s radar: Trees can lower energy bills, increase property values, and help with things like flooding and quality of life.
But when we’re working in low-canopy communities, we have to meet people where they are. There can be real costs and liabilities associated with trees — fallen branches, maintenance, gutters, and other concerns. We can’t simply show up with a baby tree and tell people it’s going to solve all their problems.
We need to ask: What is this community struggling with? Is it asthma? Urban heat? A lack of connection or sense of place? Then we can start building tree-based solutions around those needs.
That approach builds trust. When people understand that we’re listening to their concerns, they’re more likely to hear us when we talk about the value trees can provide.
How has that approach changed Forest ReLeaf’s work?
We’re trying to be a trusted source of information about the value and benefits trees provide to St. Louis and our communities. Sometimes the trees that are already there aren’t working; they might be invasive, diseased, or simply growing in the wrong place. Our job is to help people understand their landscape and make it work better for the issues they’re concerned about.
What we’ve found is that people often come to the mission for a very specific, personal reason. Maybe they want shade for a pocket park or they’re interested in biodiversity. Then they discover all the other ways trees can benefit their community.
That’s the exponential impact we get to be part of.
How does environmental justice fit into that work?
We’ve spent a lot of time looking at the unique barriers that keep different populations from participating in our programs and taking advantage of our mission.
That means making our services accessible, easy to understand, and easy to participate in. If people can’t drive to Creve Coeur, maybe we need resources closer to them. If “ecosystem services” is too abstract, let’s talk about urban heat or pollinators.
Getting clear about the benefits has been a journey, but I think it’s working.
How did that work prepare Forest ReLeaf for the May 2025 tornado?
The regional tree-canopy challenge is real. When you overlay maps of poverty, health outcomes, heat, and tree canopy, you see how closely those issues are connected.
We had already begun focusing more heavily on tree equity. Federal funding through the Inflation Reduction Act created an opportunity to invest in urban forestry, particularly in underserved communities.
We worked closely with the state and the city to maximize that opportunity. That led to programs focused on bringing more tree canopy to North City and ultimately created a five-year partnership with the City of St. Louis to plant street trees in high-need neighborhoods.
That work also helped establish our tree resilience program, which was our first significant work on private property.
So, when the tornado hit, we already had infrastructure, relationships, and connections in place. We understood what different neighborhoods needed.
Tell us about Forest ReLeaf’s tornado response and how it impacted your work.
It was devastating. It was hard for everyone because of the trauma happening to our neighbors, friends, and colleagues. It was also devastating to see trees that were essentially the only providers of ecosystem services in some neighborhoods simply leveled.
Some of our staff and their families were directly in the path of the tornado. There were a lot of big feelings around that moment. But we also felt a very specific responsibility to show up however we could for our partners and collaborators.
Initially, we didn’t have chainsaws or the insurance to do that kind of work ourselves, but we gave our staff time off to volunteer. We worked with Great Rivers Greenway, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and Shaw Nature Reserve to be part of the initial response.
One of the things we quickly recognized was that while we were talking about all the benefits of trees, there was a giant tree on someone’s house. People were saying, “It’s great that you want to plant that baby tree, but can you do something about this tree?”
That reinforced the need for maintenance, mature-tree removal, and pruning as part of our work.
We also recognized the emotional impact. Some people had experienced economic hardship or trauma because of trees, and we couldn’t simply tell them to plant another tree without acknowledging that.
That’s where our “Go Deeper” work with the Black Healers Collective became important. It gave people space to talk about their anxieties and complicated relationships with trees before moving into conversations about replanting.
Then we could start asking: What should a blank slate at O’Fallon Park look like? What do we want these parks and communities to become?
What does that recovery look like on the ground?
We wanted to approach it strategically. We weren’t going to take whatever trees happened to be available in our nursery and simply put them back.
We worked with the City Forestry Department and landscape architects on planting plans, thinking about walkways, low spots, wildlife, and long-term maintenance.
We were able to take a step back while the immediate priorities were housing, cleanup, safety, and utilities and ask: When people are ready to plant a new beginning, what should that look like?
There are thousands of trees that need to be replanted, and some of these parks were already under-treed before the tornado. So, there could be a decade of recovery work ahead. We want to do that with maintenance in mind, with a team approach, and with direction from the community.
At O’Fallon Park, we planted 300 trees as a way of saying we’re coming back to this place. We’ve planted in every tornado-damaged park, and we will continue to do so.
Forest ReLeaf’s Relief St. Louis program has also grown significantly. What does that look like now?
Relief St. Louis is now a full pillar of Forest ReLeaf. We have three full-time employees, three trucks and water tanks, a summer internship program, and seasonal employees.
We’re invested in the success of the trees we’re planting. We don’t want to plant baby trees and then have them die because they weren’t watered or maintained.
We now re-inventory the trees we plant, generally after a year and a half to two years. In our tornado [affected] parks, we’re seeing about a 93% success rate.
A lot of what we’re losing is due to things like cars hitting trees or people pulling them out, but even those losses have been minimized through thoughtful programming that brings people into the project and makes them feel part of it.
What are you hearing from the neighborhoods you’re working in?
The momentum is really strong. It’s no longer just “tree people” saying we need to plant trees in neighborhoods affected by the tornado. Neighborhood associations and residents are coming to us saying, “We want trees here. We want your help.”
That’s meaningful because it shows that people trust our team and are becoming advocates for the work themselves. The hard work now is continuing to grow and meet that demand.
We’re still a grassroots organization focused on trees, but what we do crosses so many different parts of the city and reaches so many different people and perspectives. We’re really getting to a point where trees are for everyone, and Forest ReLeaf is able to deliver on that.
What role do volunteers play in that growth?
The secret sauce of Forest ReLeaf really is the volunteers and the people who move our work forward. We wouldn’t be successful without people who generously give their time, resources, and ideas.
Volunteers don’t just increase our capacity. They bring new perspectives and ideas and help us grow. We used to think of volunteering as, “We need people to pull weeds at the nursery or help dig holes.” What we’re finding is that volunteering itself is the engagement we need to create a connection and a spark.
Then those volunteers provide the motivation, ideas, support, and next steps that help us grow. It’s almost like planting a seed, but in a person.
What do you hope people take away from Forest ReLeaf’s work?
It’s an exciting time to be in the tree business, but we can’t do anything if people don’t have a connection to nature. The people who get involved with us amplify the work in their own circles. The goal is for tree stewardship to become part of the common vernacular — not something that’s just being talked about by a few forestry people.
When a homeowner who received trees through our program starts talking to her neighbors about the benefits of those trees, that’s when you know it’s working.
That’s the dream: that the message doesn’t have to come just from us. It becomes something people understand, share, and carry forward themselves.
And what does that mean for the future of Forest ReLeaf?
I think we’re in a really great place to keep growing. Our nursery gives us the flexibility to say yes to more projects, and we have a lot of interest and momentum.
We’re still learning, but we’re also seeing how many different people, neighborhoods, and perspectives trees can connect.
Trees are for everyone, and Forest ReLeaf is becoming increasingly able to deliver that.
