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Penny PinesA Penny Pines plantation makes a wonderful gift, commemorative gesture, or memorial. You don't even have to wrap it! Specify the name of the honoree. You'll receive a certificate from USDA showing the name, along with directions to the physical site. Even more info:
The Penny Pines program is now in its 70th year, having been initiated in 1941 under the sponsorship of the San Francisco Sportswomen’s Association. Back then the price of a seedling was $0.01 (hence the name “Penny” Pines). Back then a $68.00 donation would buy 680 seedlings to plant one acre. Today, a $68.00 donation buys 230 seedlings, and still covers about an acre with healthy spacing. Each 230-seedling planting is called a “plantation.” Each plantation consists of trees appropriate to that particular area.
You can reach our Penny Pines Chair at pennypines@paradisegardenclub.org. You can learn more at the USDA’s page on Penny Pines or from these topical pages from California Garden Club and National Garden Club. Find the USDA’s brochure about the Penny Pines program here. PGCI is a registered 501(c)3 organization. Would you care to make a tax-deductible donation to support our Penny Pines program, or purchase a $68 plantation as a memorial or award?
Thanks! and... garden on! * Info from John Springer, Kern River Ranger District Culturist, in a presentation to the Kern River Valley Revitalization (KRVR) Committee in Kernville, California on January 5, 2011. |
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Paradise Garden Club Inc is a leader in Penny Pines, a statewide program sponsored by the USDA Forestry Department in which affiliated clubs make donations for the reforestation of regional (California) forests. Individuals also can make donations, such as for memorials or commemorative gifts, as long as they do so through affiliated clubs (like, say, PGCI).
The program is funded through minimum contributions of $68. At every PGCI general meeting we “pass the can” to collect spare change. Whenever contributions amount to $68, we purchase another plantation. PGCI has won honors for contributing more tree plantations than any other club in the state.
Under cooperative agreements, the U.S. Forest Service does the planting in the forest identified by the donor. Plantations can be requested in any national forest, but the majority of those purchased by PGCI are in 
Every contribution benefits the ecological health of our forest and the environment. In January 2011 it was said that combined donation and funds appropriated by Congress had helped purchase and plant more than 27 million seedlings , renewing 88,000 acres of National Forest land in California.*
