MISSOULA — A total of 34 trees were planted at Pleasant View Park on Wednesday, largely thanks to the Enterprise Mobility Foundation.
“This is my passion, I love this,” said Patrick Plantenberg, chair of the Montana Urban and Community Forestry Association.
The Enterprise Mobility Foundation, funded by the Enterprise rental car company, provided $6 million through the Arbor Day Foundation for the planting of trees across the country, including in Missoula and Hamilton.
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Plantenberg told MTN that this opportunity is more than just planting trees in a park.
“It's helping the City recover from that storm damage that took out like 600 trees last year, so it's very important that way,” said Plantenberg.
Following the July windstorm in 2024, recovering the trees that were lost has been proving a challenge in the current political climate, especially as the City of Missoula is unable to provide funding for the effort.
“All of the federal funding that we had received across the country, we had got $1.5 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act to plant trees across America," Plantenberg said. "All that money has been frozen now by the federal government."
“Anytime we can get a tree in the ground is a big deal. And I think that we, we love small wins and big wins. This is a big win today. I mean, we are putting a significant amount of trees in an area that is, could use more and did lose a lot in the last July 2024 windstorm,” said City of Missoula Ecosystem Services Division associate director Morgan Valliant.
Enterprise rental manager Jeff Kohn told MTN that, oftentimes, multi-billion dollar companies get a bad wrap, and that it is important to them to show that they are involved in their communities and give back.
“Being able to come out and participate ourselves, get away from our busy days that we have and be able to come out and give back, lead from the front, it feels great,” said Kohn.
The Enterprise Mobility Foundation has a goal of planting 50 million trees across North America and Europe. So far, they've planted 19 million.
