Volunteers honor veterans through tree care

Clear blue skies graced 80 volunteer arborists, tree climbers and other landscape professionals who spent all day Wednesday mulching and pruning trees at the Indiana War Memorial and American Legion Mall, site of National Headquarters, in Indianapolis. The volunteers were part of the 10th annual Saluting Branches: Arborists United for Remembrance, a day of service to clean up veteran-dedicated sites for beautification and safety as a way to honor American servicemembers.

“There’s not many times as a volunteer where you get to use the skillset that you have professionally to provide services to sites like this that sorely need that work done,” said Carrie Tauscher, volunteer team leader onsite at the Indiana War Memorial and the arboretum director at Crown Hill Foundation in Indianapolis. “There is a little something extra about coming out to do tree work here and to also be able to tell your friends, your family, your customers, that you were part of something to serve our veterans and give back a little bit in the best way you know how.”

The Indiana War Memorial and American Legion Mall were part of 110 veteran sites across the United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico, where more than 4,000 volunteers donated a day of tree and lawn services at no cost as part of Saluting Branches. It is the largest single-day volunteer event in the tree care industry where volunteers plant, prune, remove and treat trees and shrubs in effort to enhance safety and beauty.

Saluting Branches, a Minnesota-based nonprofit, was founded in 2015 by Rainbow Treecare to honor America’s servicemembers by caring for veteran sites that include cemeteries, nursing homes, medical centers, hospitals, monuments and more. For the past 10 years on the third Wednesday of September, more than 3,500 tree care companies, volunteers and sponsors have provided nearly $5 million in safety and beautification services.

This was the first time Eric Reiser, owner of Premier Tree Care in Indianapolis, has volunteered for Saluting Branches. “A veteran family friend of mine sent me the (volunteer) link and said, ‘You should look at getting into this.’ It seemed like a great cause, so I came down for the day,” he said. “It’s been good; we’ve got a lot done which has been nice.”

Chandra Seybert is an accountant by day but came out to volunteer alongside her husband who is a board master certified arborists with AES Indiana. “My whole family is military. My grandpa, my dad, my brothers and my nephew is currently in the Navy. So it’s always just a good cause, and I know enough about trees from my husband,” said Seybert, who was helping lay mulch. “Today is a good cause, and it’s great. I love to give back when I can.”

Last year for the day of service, 12 trees were planted by the Indiana War Memorial to provide shade for visitors. On Wednesday, mulch was laid around more than 50 trees and volunteers deadwood locust trees “to keep the trees we have onsite alive and healthy and safe as long as possible,” Tauscher said. Volunteers for Saluting Branches were also at the Indiana Veterans’ Home in West Lafayette, Ind., where they have gone for the past seven to eight years. The tree services provided has amounted to about $400,000 worth of free work on the 280-plus acre site, Tauscher said.

It's at the Indiana Veterans’ Home where American Legion Auxiliary members feed the volunteers, a service appreciated by Tauscher. “Finding lunch and food is the hardest thing possible (for the volunteers). We never have never had that problem there. (The Auxiliary members) call me mid-summer and ask, ‘How many volunteers do you have? What do you need?’ They grill for us, we eat, it’s amazing.”