Last week my girlfriend, Natalie, told me about the Greenbelt Movement, an organization founded in the 1970s by Wangari Maathai to combat deforestation and soil erosion in Kenya by training women to plant trees. According to a radio piece on Living on Earth, the movement has dramatically improved water quality and habitat for both animals and people.

Well, in a couple of weeks Natalie is going to help improve the environment a little closer to home by participating in the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation’s Tree-a-Thon. The goal is to plant between 500 and 1000 trees, and other native plants, around the laguna, which is located here in Sonoma County just north of Sebastopol.

If you’d like to sponsor Natalie in support of the Tree-aThon, and the birds, fish, and river otters that call the laguna home, here’s a link where you can donate.