Historic tree-planting day organized by Cincinnati’s MadTree Brewing

Shoutout to Cincinnati’s MadTree Brewing for its continued environmental initiatives like this: On Oct. 29, over 200 volunteers made history by planting mad trees (over 200!) in the city’s Avondale neighborhood. This “Let’s Grow Local” effort, led by MadTree, dramatically increased the tree canopy and green landscape of this neighborhood, and it’s an event built upon five years of community partnerships.

MadTree organized this event alongside 1% for the Planet partners Cincinnati Parks Foundation, Cincinnati Parks and Groundwork ORV. Since 2019, these organizations have enriched Cincinnati with over 6,000 trees across diverse neighborhoods. These dedicated partners have big plans to keep growing Let’s Grow Local and continue adding trees in neighborhoods that need it most.

“What started as an employee outing to plant 60 trees has steadily grown and gained traction,” said Rhiannon Hoeweler, VP of Experience & Impact at MadTree. “Each year, more friends, partners and sponsors join in, more neighborhoods come into play, more trees are planted and more impact is made.”

MadTree Let’s Grow Local

With over 20 sponsors and partners participating this year, Let’s Grow Local is making quite an impact across Avondale. In addition to planting 200+ trees around Cleveland Park, South Avondale Schools and the surrounding neighborhoods, volunteers are also focusing on park cleanup, invasive species removal and garden maintenance.

“The benefit to the community is priceless,” commented Sandra Jones Mitchell, President, Avondale Community Council. “The park is part of the heartbeat of the community – adding more trees and shade provides more places for people to gather, connect and enjoy.”

Trees have so many physical and mental benefits. It’s the reason why Let’s Grow Local relentlessly focuses on increasing tree canopy cover in Climate Safe Neighborhoods with less than 40% tree canopy cover. Increasing the tree canopy helps create a healthier community and environment.

More trees means:

• Improved air quality
• Reduced risk of heat stress
• Decreased flooding
• Cooler neighborhoods by up to 10°F
• Increased happiness – trees improve mental health and mood

“This year, we’ll be digging in and doing good in Avondale for the largest single-day tree planting event to ever take place in Cincinnati,” said Jennifer Spieser, President & CEO of Cincinnati Parks Foundation. “Next year we’ll keep the planting party going elsewhere in the city. We hope more companies and individuals continue to get involved and help us in making Cincinnati a little cooler, a little greener and a lot more beautiful.”

In addition to the Let’s Grow Local event, MadTree has also created a Let’s Grow Local honey wheat beer in its honor. The beer is made with local honey from Carriage House Farms and is already an award-winner, taking home a bronze medal in a national beer competition hosted by the National Honey Board. The beer is available for purchase in the Oakley Taproom and 1% of all its proceeds go back into helping plant trees.