HOWELL – After an eventful year of service, Howell Township’s Shade Tree Commission gave a presentation summarizing their success, endeavors and future plans at the latest Town Council meeting.
The presentation was given by Lisa Dowd, the commission’s chairwoman. She gave the council members a walkthrough of the year’s accomplishments in thorough detail.
The Shade Tree Commission received four grants to continue their environmental efforts, including an Arbor Day Foundation Grant and a Superstorm Sandy Recovery Grant for bare-root seedlings.
Also this year, the commission’s efforts earned Howell Township another Tree City USA certification, making 2024 the 26th year Howell was dubbed a ‘Tree City.’ Part of the township was also registered as a ‘Community Wildlife Habitat’ this year.
For their hands-on efforts with Howell residents, the commission did many projects with Howell Schools, especially in the spirit of the season during Arbor Day. The commission planted one tree at each school and distributed over 600 seedlings to third graders to support their education in their environmental unit.
There were also seedlings donated to members of the community during two different events this year: a spring and fall seedling giveaway, which donated hundreds of seedlings to community members.
Notably, the Shade Tree Commission worked in various collaborations with other commissions and organizations this year. This included work with other Howell organizations, such as the Howell Green Team and the Howell Township Environmental Commission, but also reaches further to groups like Rutgers Water Resources and FirstEnergy.
Rutgers Water Resources and the Shade Tree Commission worked on a rain garden project in Howell’s Soldier Memorial Park, a garden designed to capture rain and prevent runoff in the park’s parking lot. For 2025, the two commissions plan to collaborate again for a similar project in Monmouth Ridings.
FirstEnergy’s collaboration resulted in the development of a pollinator garden in Howell’s Aldrich School, which was the first pollinator garden planted by FirstEnergy in the state of New Jersey. This collaboration, along with help from the Green Team and Master Gardeners collaboration, was a very successful project.
Also in the presentation were plans for the commission for the upcoming year. There are various projects in the works, new and old, including more seedling giveaways, continued grant applications, and proposals for plantings of detention basins and open space plantings.
There is also a native tree and shrub project on Easy Street planned, and an additional project proposing to plant trees in Winston Park.
For the commission’s benefit, there is also a plan to develop a new tree inventory software. According to Dowd, this will help the commission with keeping track of tree maintenance and plantings around Howell.
The council was very pleased with Dowd’s presentation, as well as the work and service she has contributed herself.
“We’re very fortunate to have [you],” said Councilwoman Evelyn Malsbury-O’Donnell. “Very good to hear and very nice to hear the partnership with FirstEnergy. FirstEnergy is really trying to step up in the communities. You have an incredible amount of people around that are very supportive. The amount of work that your committees push out is just ridiculous.”
Dowd appreciated the comment from O’Donnell, and replied with some of her own gratitude.
“I do have to thank all of my committee members of the Green Team, Shade Tree Commission and the Environmental Commission. They’re great, they come out for all the projects and we couldn’t do it without them,” she said. “And all the community members that come out. We are always looking for volunteers. We could do more, we just need volunteers.”
Dowd also spoke of planning to present the public with more advanced notice with project dates to try and accrue more volunteers.
The Shade Tree Commission has its own page on the Howell Township website for more information.
