Benefits of being a Tree City USA city

Earlier this week I posted about my city, Alexandria, being name a Tree City USA city once again.
There are many benefits but two that I would like to highlight are financial assistance and publicity.

Preference is sometimes given to Tree City USA communities over other communities when allocations of grant money are made for trees or forestry programs. The reason is that there are invariably more requests than available funds when grants are available through state or federal agencies. If requests are equally worthy, some officials tend to have more confidence in communities that have demonstrated the foresight of becoming a Tree City USA.

Presentation of the Tree City USA award and the celebration of Arbor Day offer excellent publicity opportunities. This results not only in satisfaction for the individuals involved and their families, but also provides one more way to reach large numbers of people with information about tree care. As one forester put it, "This is advertising that money can't buy— and it is free!"