By Toni Riley for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for Kentucky News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration
When two massive tornados ravaged rural west Kentucky on the evening of December 10 and the morning of December 11, 2021, aid was immediate. Thousands of volunteers, millions of dollars of donations, and support poured into the counties—many with irreparable damage.
As the families began to pick up the pieces of their lives, many suffered a total loss, including decades-old trees; replacing those trees wasn’t foremost in their minds. But it was for Ashley Short.
In January 2022, Short began formulating an idea to provide trees to homeowners affected by tornados.
“I wanted to do something to help.”, Short said. He had wanted to help locally but found plenty of volunteers already. But trees were something he could do. “
Trees he would grow himself at his Highlandbrook Nursery, and not just a few trees – 4000!
“My attitude toward this comes from my heritage, my parents, and even my Cherokee ancestry. If you take care of the Land, it will take care of you and always leave the world a better place than you found it.” Short said.
Short began by contacting Christian County Extension Agent for Horticulture, Kelly Jackson. If Short grew the trees, could Jackson get them distributed? “Of course,” was Jackson’s immediate response.
Jackson had actually been thinking about trees. Extension Agents in the area attended training on how to provide tornado relief. One training told of a tiny town in Kansas, leveled by a tornado, but when rebuilt, had no tree-lined streets and didn’t feel like home. Jackson thought Short’s donation would help develop that feeling of “home.”
Short would provide native trees, a specialty of his nursery, located on the family’s 1811 farm near Allensville, Kentucky. He selected 21 species, including evergreens, nine different oaks, and perennial favorites, Red Maple and Yellow Poplar. Short also said he liked to think the trees were his footprint on the earth. He wanted to think about what kids would play under the trees and what animals would use them as a habitat.
In March, he purchased the 18-inch seedings, and he and his work team potted the seedings in gallon pots, watered, and fertilized them throughout a hot, dry summer. He estimated he invested about $9000 in the project.
In August, Short got back in touch with Jackson and said the trees, now 4 and 5 feet tall, were on schedule, however, the total number would be around 3600 due to loss from deer and rabbits.
Jackson contacted Matt Dixon, a University of Kentucky Extension Meteorologist, to determine the specific counties affected by the tornados. There were two lines of tornados running parallel through west Kentucky. The northern path was an EF 4 that devastated communities along a 200-mile line from Fulton County in the farthest western tip of Kentucky to Breckinridge County, about 50 miles east of Owensboro. An EF 3 tornado traveled a path from Trigg County, on the eastern side of the Land Between the Lakes, through Bowling Green into Taylor County in south central Kentucky.
Fourteen of the 21 affected counties responded to the offer for trees, and Jackson set up a schedule to deliver trees during National Tree Week in mid-October.
Christian County Extension staff and Christian County Master Gardeners’ set out across the state and distributed trees with the help of other University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Agents. Counties received from 650 to 150 trees, and Taylor County received the most.
Jackson said he knew of no other single individual or business that had donated, such as Ashley Short. He did say the Arbor Foundation in conjunction with other companies, had given trees away in two communities, but not the scope of the Highlandbrook Nursery effort.
On a bright blue October morning, the old Pembroke School parking lot in Pembroke, Kentucky, filled quickly as Christian County Master Gardeners; Nate Pickens and Frank Amaro set out 250 trees for the town of 650 and the nearby farming community.
Each site replicated this scene, with communities and neighbors coming together. The words thank you, hope, and future were repeated frequently.
Tiffany and Brandon Hilliker, new residents to the Pembroke area, lost several trees on their 5-acre property.
“I love trees,” Tiffany explained as she and Brandon made their selections. “I think there is a spirit about trees, which hold so much history and are important to our future.”
A young Pembroke Elementary student selected eight red maple trees to plant at her school, so her fellow classmates could enjoy the cheerful red fall color.
In Muhlenberg County, Extension Agent for Agriculture Darrel Simpson told of a family who would be planting their trees in memory of family members who died in the tornado.
“Although the tree program may be perceived as a “service,” It is much more. It is a way to start the rebuilding and healing process much needed by our community.” Simpson added.
The Southern Christian County Howell community came together at the home of Master Gardener Janie Giles to pick up their150 trees.
“It was in therapeutic,” Giles said. “We don’t have a gathering spot, and this was the first time neighbors had come together since the tornado,” Giles noted that many of the people did not know each other, and they talked at length about their experience that night and how they coped.
Ashely Short was surprised and humbled when he started receiving letters of gratitude.
“I never realized I was touching people the way I did.”
He received a letter from a family in Mayfield who lost 125-year-old trees on their farm and how meaningful it was to be able to plant trees back for the future generations of their family.
Pembroke Mayor Judy Peterson said the tree distribution was essential for this close-knit community where everyone knows everyone.
“It’s good for the community to come together; getting the trees Is so important. We have been through so much and lost so much. You have to have mother nature – it helps build back and gives us hope.”
Toni Riley wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.
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By Cinnamon Janzer for Next City.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Wisconsin News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration
At Madison, Wisconsin’s nine public libraries, residents can check out books of all kinds, from hardbacks and paperbacks to ebooks and audiobooks. They can check out movies as DVDs and Blu-rays. And since last year, library card holders can also check out electric bicycles.
Madison’s public libraries are part of a growing number of bike libraries in cities and towns from coast to coast. A list of U.S. bike lending libraries curated by StreetsblogMASS reporter Grecia White documents 35 such programs, from Vermont to Texas. While they all look a little different and work a little differently, they all do the same thing — increase free access to bikes.
As a 2021 report by People for Bikes notes, there are a number of social, cultural and physical barriers that keep cities across the country from creating inclusive biking communities, from unequal distribution of biking infrastructure to prevailing perceptions of cycling as an activity for white men. A study in Portland, Oregon, found that car traffic, know-how, and space needed to maintain and store a bike are among the biggest barriers to bike use.
But cost, the researchers found, gets in the way, too. Even the cheapest road bikes still cost a couple hundred dollars, and the cost can go well into the five-figure range. For those who need an extra boost, most electric bikes cost at least $1,000. Municipal bike shares can help with access issues, but their payment infrastructure doesn’t work for those who are unbanked.
Enter bike libraries. In Madison, as long as you’re one of the 62% of city residents who have a library card, you can check out an electric bike from one of the city’s libraries for free. This is thanks to a partnership with Madison BCycle, an e-bike sharing company in the city whose parent company is Trek, a bike company based in nearby Waterloo, Wisconsin.
Last year Bcycle came to the Madison Public Library Foundation with an idea for a Community Pass Program that would give library card holders access to more than 300 electric bikes across the city.
“Making bike share more accessible in our community is a top priority for us,” Madison Bcycle’s general manager Helen Bradley said in a press release for the program’s launch last September. “Launching the Community Pass Program is one way we can ensure that everyone in our community has access to bike share as a transportation option.”
Instead of requiring the use of a credit card or a smartphone to unlock an electric-assist bike from one of the city’s more than 50 docking stations, Community Pass users check out an access fob from the library instead. The fob passes can be checked out for up to a week at a time. Each of the city’s nine public libraries have two passes available. So far this season, from March 15 until the end of last month, the city’s libraries have seen 279 fob check outs.
“We have nearly two million visits a year in our nine libraries in Madison, so it’s a place where a lot of people are coming and going every day,” explains Tana Elias, Madison Public Library’s digital services and marketing manager. It’s an equity initiative she adds, noting that it gives people the chance to rent a bike if they haven’t ridden one in a while as well as the chance to choose a bike over a taxi or an Uber.
“It’s an opportunity to choose to be a little healthier in your day-to-day activity. But also, if you haven’t ridden a bike recently, it’s a good opportunity to get out there and try it without making a huge commitment.”
Because Madison Bcycle’s infrastructure was already in place, including docking stations outside several library locations, there were only a few puzzle pieces to fit into place. In the end, the waiver that riders sign is from Bcycle so they’re handling the liability. In addition to managing the check-out process, the library foundation purchased helmets to complement the program, so users can check those out too if they like.
Because some of the docking stations are older than others, the technology is different between them and sometimes users had trouble getting the fobs to work right away, but the library has solved that with an information sheet that they co-created with Bicycle that explains how to use the fobs at different docking stations. Plus, “they upgraded some of their stations and they tried a new fob. It was definitely a back and forth testing process with a lot of feedback on both sides,” Elias says.
At the Student Government Association bike library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus, the process is a bit more straightforward. The program that’s been running since roughly 2011 checks out cruiser bikes — chosen for their durability, accessibility and comfort — to the school’s students, faculty and staff.
The program has been on pause since the pandemic, but Ibrahim Akar, the SGA’s chief of staff, plans to relaunch the program next month. The key to their re-launch has been building out a waitlist and replenishing the bike supply that went from roughly 45 pre-pandemic to 11 today.
In November, Akar plans to advertise pop-up check out events online and on social media for the bikes that can be checked out for an entire semester and eventually a full year before getting an online reservation system up and running next semester. The bike library is free to use, each bike comes with a lock, and repairs are covered by an on-campus bike co-op that the SGA has partnered with.
“Working in the SGA, we work towards meeting the needs of students on campus and a lot of students would highly prefer to ride a bicycle than wait for the bus,” Akar says. “When you have a bicycle, you can leave on your own schedule and there’s a lot of fun that comes with riding a bike as well. You get to just enjoy the view and breathe in some fresh air. So obviously, if that’s something that the students want, we’re going to work as hard as we can to be able to bring that to them.”
Cinnamon Janzer wrote this article for Next City.
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