Lake Worth Tree Board to show free documentary

CITY TREE BOARD PRESS RELEASE
                                                                             
For immediate release - October 18, 2017                                  
Contact David McGrew
561-586-1677
dmcgrew@lakeworth.org

City of Lake Worth Tree Board Talk (& movie) at Lake Worth Public Library

Lake Worth, FL – October 18, 2017 – The Lake Worth City Tree Board is pleased to announce that the 2017 Tree Board Talk takes place on Thursday, November 9, 2017 at the Lake Worth Public Library at 15 North M Street in downtown Lake Worth. This year’s Tree Board Talk has a new component: the screening of documentary film Hometown Habitat: Stories of Bringing Nature Home.  That movie will be followed by a panel discussion.  Doors open at 6:00 p.m. and the documentary begins at 6:15 p.m.  Admission is free and everyone is welcome.

Hometown Habitat is a film that focuses on the thoughts and observations of Douglas Tallamy, Ph.D., the Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife at University of Delaware.  Dr. Tallamy was the 2013 winner of the Garden Writer’s Association’s Silver Medal Award for his groundbreaking book Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife With Native Plants, originally published in 2007.  Award winning director Catherine Zimmerman and her film crew set out across the United States in search of ecological stewards and the communities they documented were as diverse as the habitats that they sought out.

Discussion takes place between the four panelists after the screening.  The speakers are:

• Lake Worth’s own Robert Hopper, a senior scientist at South Florida Water Management District.  With Plant Sciences and MA Landscape Architecture degrees from Cornell and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Mr. Hopper helped design front and backyards landscapes with South Florida native plants at homes in Lake Worth built by Habitat for Humanity.

• Robert Taylor, a lead environmental scientist at the South Florida Water Management District for the past fifteen years, was the recipient of the 2013 US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) Regional Director Honor Award for his contribution to the Everglades restoration project. Prior to Waste Management’s takeover of Southern Waste Systems, Bob Taylor partnered with Southern Waste Systems and the City of West Palm Beach to receive tree planting grants, which educated communities on the importance of selecting native trees in green infrastructure projects.

• Mary Jo Aagerstoun, who earned a Ph.D. at University of Maryland in Art History in 2004, is a founder of Artists for Climate Action and EcoArt South Florida.  She has been an eco artist activist in South Florida for the past decade and recently has served on the Florida Native Plant Society’s Board of Director, where she chairs the Society’s Palm Beach County Urban Landscape Committee and leads its Going Native campaign.

• Two sites, Old Dixie Ecowalk at Seaborn Cove in Boynton Beach and Babbling Brook in the Westgate section of unincorporated Palm Beach County, featured in Hometown Habitat, are the brainchild of Lucy Keshavarz, eco art in public places designer and president and owner of Art & Culture Group, Inc.

“I’m thrilled to have the City Tree Board speaker series return to the Lake Worth Public Library in downtown Lake Worth,” said City of Lake Worth Horticulturalist, David McGrew, staff liaison to the board.
“The Tree Board’s effort to educate residents about the benefits of South Florida native shade trees and native understory over the past few years has started to yield results in private yards in our neighborhoods.” added Tree Board Chair, Richard Stowe, “On the heels of the Palm Beach County chapter of the  Florida Native Plant Society’s October 1st garden tour, which featured five Lake Worth South Florida native gardens, we hope this multimedia Tree Board Talk will contribute to further South Florida native plant conversions around our city.”

The City Tree Board is one of a number of volunteer advisory boards, which assist the City Commission.  The City Tree Board meets at 5:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of the month.  All members are selected by City Commissioners and the Mayor.  Meetings are open to the public.