Inspired by Jane Goodall, students build nurseries to reforest L.A.'s fire-scorched communities

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

Their small hands, in garden gloves, work in concert as the late-morning sun intensifies over Pacific Palisades.Tyler and Cora steady a western redbud sapling as Atticus holds up a bag of soil and Eliza shovels out the fragrant earth.

Sarai Woodard, 17, here from EF Academy in Pasadena, guides the second- and fifth-graders as they transfer the native tree from a five- to a 15-gallon container: “We’re gonna put the dirt in … let’s pat it down now.”Last year, the Palisades fire destroyed their elementary school, Seven Arrows.The charred campus is around the corner.

Soon there are 30 repotted toyon, California sycamore and western redbud trees forming a new nursery at the Aldersgate Retreat Center, where the blaze had lapped at the back of a chapel and blackened towering redwoods.The effort is part of TREEAMS — trees and dreams — which aims to see local kids plant 5,000 trees in the next three to five years in scorched areas of Altadena, the Palisades and Malibu.Students will tend to the roughly 2-year-old trees until they can be replanted in schools, parks and homes affected by the Palisades as well as the Eaton fire.The vision was conceived by Jane Goodall, the late, famed chimpanzee expert, and Margarita Pagliai, who founded Seven Arrows and Little Dolphins Preschool in the Palisades.Students in those places “have lived through something very difficult,” Pagliai said at the planting event on Tuesday.“Many are still hurting, many families are still rebuilding.

TREEAMS gives students a way to act now, to give back and to help their communities heal with their own hands.”Goodall, a dedicated conservationist, was set to plant the first tree at the initial TREEAMS kickoff last October at EF Academy.Then just 15 minutes before the event began, organizers learned she had passed away.

“Instead, we planted it in her honor,” said Shawna Marino, vice presid...