Shade for ALL

GREEN JOBS, GREENER CITIES

Paid Learning Opportunities

Why It Matters

In neighborhoods where there is more concrete and asphalt, record-breaking heat is reflected, trapped, and absorbed during the day and radiated and released at night, offering residents no reprieve. And yet a well-treed neighborhood–even just a few blocks away can feel 20 degrees cooler or more in the shade.

Urban nature works as a natural cooling system and is a crucial public health strategy to protect people from extreme heat and enhance well-being. By planting the right trees in the right places and expanding shade where people need it most, we can cool people’s everyday experiences walking to school or taking the bus or getting groceries, while improving air quality and boosting overall health for our communities.

In our hottest neighborhoods, well-placed tree canopy can be a life-saving measure. Residents in Phoenix have named 2500+ sites where they need protection from heat. Designing, growing, implementing, and sustaining tree and shade canopy at this scale requires expanding a well-trained cohort of workers committed to bringing and maintaining a resilient, low-water, biodiverse urban forest strategically placed in our hottest neighborhoods. Through neighborhood workshops, paid learning opportunities, paid internships, entrepreneurship courses and mentoring with business and urban nature experts, ASU’s Urban Nature initiative engages residents of frontline communities in planning and expanding a resilient urban tree canopy while opening pathways to start, sustain and grow a thriving urban nature career or business.

Neighborhood Tree Action Plans

Shade for ALL

Group of people around a development plan for urban forestry. In collaboration with Phoenix, Tempe, Guadalupe, and Mesa, ASU and Unlimited Potential will host a Shade for ALL workshop series to design tailored Neighborhood Tree Action Plans.

Live in one of these areas? Come join us for a 2-workshop series (details on our Events page):

Phoenix

Lindo Park
South Central Corridor: Rio Salado, South, South Mountain areas
Desert West Park
Mountain View Park

Guadalupe + Tempe

Town of Guadalupe + Southwest Tempe, Baseline–Hardy neighborhood

Mesa

Sherwood Park area

Shade for ALL Workshop Series. The first workshop in the 2-part series is designed around a community game, with boards showing maps of planting opportunities in each neighborhood and where it is easier, harder, and hardest to plant—and why. Come play the Dreams of Shade game with neighbors, city leaders, community health workers, and ASU members to envision Shade for ALL that protects all residents when and where they need it most.

After the first workshop, our ASU team will research residents’ priority tree and shade locations on public property. We will also ask residents to talk with neighbors, business owners, nonprofits, churches, schools, and homeowners about planting trees on private property for the public good.

The second workshop will put tree and shade priorities, strategies, and interest together to create a Neighborhood Tree Action Plan using real information about what is needed and what is possible in each neighborhood. The result will be an actionable Neighborhood Tree Action Plan to realize—and maximize—Shade for ALL.

Paid Learning, Green Jobs

Through community-industry partnerships, this initiative offers paid learning opportunities and paid internships in Spanish and in English for people interested in green jobs that sustain our urban tree and shade canopy. This comprehensive Urban Nature vocational program will include experiential courses, field training, stackable learning experiences, internships, and pre-apprenticeships that can bridge into long-term positions.

For residents in CEJST areas

Learning opportunities in Spanish and in English.

Classes begin the week of January 20, 2025

Apply Here

Unlimited Potential and Bartlett Tree Experts		Tree Care, Tree Climbing, Tree Maintenance
Orchard Community Learning Center		Landscape & Irrigation Design, Water Conservation, Care of Shade and Food Trees
Spaces of Opportunity		Landscape Design, Care of Shade and Food Trees, Tree Maintenance
Arizona Conservation Corps		Tree Monitoring, Tree Maintenance
City of Tempe Going on now!		Tree Stewardship
ASU Seed Start Center		Tree Starts and Nursery Operations

Launch + Scale Green Businesses

Pilots

Pilots
ASU will support entrepreneurs and community-based organizations in learning to create and fulfill urban forestry pilot contracts with anchor institutions, like cities, universities, churches, and other key organizations and businesses. This arrangement allows community-based organizations and owners of small businesses to learn procurement processes and develop their capacity incrementally, at a pace and scale that ensures their long-term viability.

Events

Shade for ALL Neighborhood Workshops: Lindo Park

Workshop 1
Date: September 19, 2024
Time: 5-7pm
Location: Muriel Smith Recreation Center | 2230 W Roeser Rd, Phoenix AZ 85041

Workshop 2
Date: October 24, 2024
Time: 5-7pm
Location: Spaces of Opportunity |1200 W Vineyard Rd., Phoenix, AZ 85041

Learn More Here

Shade for ALL Neighborhood Workshops: Phoenix – South Central Corridor: Rio Salado, South, South Mountain areas

Workshop 1
Date: October 10, 2024
Time: 5-7pm
Location: South Mountain Community Center | 212 E Alta Vista Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85042

Workshop 2
Date: November 14, 2024
Time: 5-7pm
Location: South Mountain Community Center | 212 E Alta Vista Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85042

Learn More Here

What the Program is About:

A new three-year project led by Arizona State University — in partnership with community-based organizations, municipalities, industry partners and national organizations — is working directly with Valley residents to co-create actionable neighborhood Shade for ALL plans while supporting economic growth.

Partners

Project Lead:
ASU Walton Sustainability Solutions Service

Funded Implementation Partners:
Arizona Landscape Contractors Association
Arizona Conservation Corps
City of Tempe
Hustle PHX
Orchard Community Learning Center
Spaces of Opportunity
Unlimited Potential
Watershed Management Group

Supporting Collaboration Partners:
City of Phoenix
City of Mesa
Town of Guadalupe
The Nature Conservancy
American Forests
Arizona Nursery Association
International Society of Arboriculture
Bartlett Tree Experts

ASU Participating Units:
The Design School
Department of English
Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research

Get in Touch

Urban Nature is a $5 million Justice40 Initiative funded by the USDA Forest Service Urban and Community Forestry Program, part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Led by the ASU Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service (RMWSSS), it has launched the creation of customized community forestry plans through a series of neighborhood-based workshops that put residents at the forefront of the planning process.