Tree Spunk By Sara London
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 Turning Over New Leaves.
Thousands of teenagers, hundreds of trees, seven miles, and one great dream. These are the seeds for one of the biggest plantations in urban history, to take place on the fifteenth of this month-Martin Luther King Day-on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Los Angeles. The goal: turning miles of roadside into a living memorial. The leader: one Andy Lipkis, founder of TreePeople-a 17-year-old nonprofit environmental group that offers everything from advice to hands-on help for flowering our planet with trees.
A 35-year-old "global Johnny Appleseed," Lipkis began his tree spree at 15 by planting highly smog-tolerant seedlings in California's dying San Bernardino National Forest. He went on to explore the many benefits of trees-from camouflaging graffiti-scarred buildings to helping feed the hungry (he recently organized the airlifting of mare than 6,000 fruit -bearing saplings from California nurseries to famine-stricken Africa). Lipkis points out that, as carbon dioxide eaters, trees reduce air pollution-by absorbing smog-and help reverse the greenhouse effect (the dangerous global warming trend). Through TreePeople, he's inspired the planting of more than a million COygobblers in the L.A. area alone-and more than 200 million trees around the world.
Not surprisingly, kids make up a large part of Lipkis's 11,000-member group, whose current goal is to plant 100 million trees. "Our teenagers have inherited an environmental mess," he says, "so they have to be problem solvers." Their next effort comes on the fifteenth. What better time to dig in?
Source: Seventeen Magazine
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