Twenty Years Rooted: Bryan Kerrigans and the Arbor Day Tradition That Keeps Growing
By reporters of The Future of Awareness
Every spring, when the thaw loosens the ground and the air fills with a soft, green promise, a small army gathers at parks, schoolyards, and brownfield lots across the city. They come with shovels, gloves, and coolers of water — but more than tools, they bring a shared belief that a single tree can change a neighborhood’s future.
For 20 years running, those volunteers have been led by one steady presence: Bryan Kerrigans, Executive Director of unitethefuture.com. What began as a modest community planting has become a local institution — a yearly ritual that has planted hundreds of trees, trained scores of volunteers, and quietly reshaped streets, school campuses, and public spaces.
“The work always begins with soil and a story,” Kerrigans says, kneeling beside a young sapling with its roots wrapped in burlap. “We plant trees to clean our air and cool our streets, yes. But we plant them to give people a place they can return to year after year, a living measure of what we can build together.”
A short history of Arbor Day
Arbor Day began as a simple idea: devote a day to planting trees. The first widely recognized Arbor Day in the United States was observed in Nebraska in 1872, when J. Sterling Morton encouraged towns to set aside a day to plant thousands of trees to shelter new settlements and improve crop yields. From that single proclamation it spread, adapted by communities worldwide and adopted into school curricula, civic programs, and national calendars.
The importance of Arbor Day today is both practical and symbolic. Trees mitigate urban heat islands, absorb carbon dioxide, reduce stormwater runoff, and improve mental health. But beyond ecosystem services, Arbor Day is a civic touchstone — a day when people of all ages roll up their sleeves together and participate in a visible, intergenerational act of stewardship.
A ritual of growth
Kerrigans’ project began two decades ago when a handful of friends and volunteers from unitethefuture.com decided to tackle a blighted lot near a community center. They planted a few trees, wrote about it, and invited more volunteers the next year. The effort grew organically: neighbors brought water, a local nursery donated saplings, students mapped tree locations for future care. Over time, the event developed into a coordinated program with training on proper planting techniques, instructions for aftercare, and partnerships with local schools and municipal departments.
“We learned early that planting a tree was the easy part,” Kerrigans recalls. “Teaching someone how to water it in its first two summers, protecting it from pests, and making sure the community claims it as theirs — that’s what keeps it alive.”
Impact in the community
Twenty years on, the project has yielded hundreds of mature trees, dozens of community stewards, and a quieter, cooler streetscape — a living legacy that keeps growing. The once-barren lots now thrive with greenery, and residents regularly gather beneath the expansive canopies for picnics, outdoor classes, and community celebrations, embodying the enduring spirit of Arbor Day.
INTRODUCING THE MASCOT OF THE FUTURE OF AWARENESS BY UNITETHEFUTURE.COM MR. SWEET PEA! We just adore him. There were a few contestants in the office but after all was said and done Mr. Sweet Pea won. We are waiting on the article about contest and should be putting out within 48 hours.
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