TREE Fund Spring 2025 Grant and Scholarship Recipients Announcement
Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund (TREE Fund) is proud to announce its Spring 2025 Grant and Scholarship recipients.
After approval during the TREE Fund Board of Trustees meeting, one research grant and three education grants, including two for the new Davey Tree Expert Company Community Arboriculture Education Grant Program, are being awarded. In addition to these grants, ten students were awarded TREE Fund scholarships in the amount of $5,000 each towards their continuing education.
With these new grants and scholarships being awarded, TREE Fund has surpassed $6 million in giving in accordance with its mission to identify and support programs that discover and disseminate new knowledge in the fields of arboriculture and urban forestry.
Celebrating its 15th year, a $50,000 grant from the Utility Arborist Research Fund Grant Program was awarded to Melody Mount of the University of Tennessee for the project “Impacts of Accessor Perceptions, Species, and Defects When Performing Tree Risk Assessments.”
Three education grants were awarded this spring with two grants coming from the new Davey Tree Expert Company Community Arboriculture Education Grant Program. One grant of $4985 was awarded to the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Monroe County (NY) for its “Urban Tree Equity Education and Outreach” program and a second grant of $5000 to St. Olaf College (MN) for its “Educating St. Olaf and Carleton College Students on Disease/ Pest Identification, Safe Chainsaw Use, and Tree Care as a Profession” program.
The Ohio Chapter ISA Education Grant was awarded to Western Reserve Land Conservancy in Ohio for its Tree Steward Training Program in the amount of $5000.
A total of ten student scholarships were awarded this cycle. Five of which came from the Robert Felix Memorial Scholarship Program. Scholarship recipients include Clayton Mahoney of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (GA), Jackson Wilson of Michigan Tech University, Tyler Stewart of Brigham Young University (UT), Patience Tongo Fouelefack of College La Cite (Ottawa), and Connor Will of Virginia Tech University.
Also receiving scholarships this cycle were Keely Zuber of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who received the Bonnie Appleton Memorial Scholarship; Olivia Shetterly of the College of DuPage (IL), who received the Larry R. Hall Memorial Scholarship; Owen McKinley of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who received the Will Nutter Memorial Scholarship; Trinity Willoughby of Pennsylvania College of Technology, who received the Fran Ward Women in Arboriculture Scholarship; and Alex Prideaux of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, who received the John Wright Memorial Scholarship.
TREE Fund is a non-profit organization whose mission is to support scientific discovery and dissemination of new knowledge in the fields of arboriculture and urban forestry. TREE Fund promotes scientific inquiry designed to benefit commercial, residential, utility and consulting arborists, urban foresters, and other professionals in related fields in their shared work to create, support and sustain vibrant urban canopies. TREE Fund offers ten grants and six scholarships during fall and spring application cycles. More information can be found at www.treefund.org.