Winter is made more brilliant in Hawai’i with the fruiting citrus trees and blooming Hong Kong Orchid trees. These kinds of shade trees provide protective canopies that play many roles in managing a healthy ecosystem. Many of the giant canopy trees seen around the islands, and now deemed Exceptional Tree status, were planted by the founders of The Outdoor Circle.

Across the state, a good number of these exceptional trees have reached the end of their life cycle. The Outdoor Circle is committed to a state-wide Exceptional Tree Initiative, endorsed by our Governor and First Lady, both long-time members of The Outdoor Circle. This plan of action includes community members who steward the parks and other public areas where the legacy trees are planted. They will have our help in replacing their neighborhood trees with large canopied trees.A large canopy tree is definitive of the structure of The Outdoor Circle. Ten branches state-wide make a healthy canopy under which our organization fulfills our mission.

We start the New Year by welcoming our 10th branch in West Honolulu, seated in the verdant hills of Manoa. We look toward to Kapolei district to follow in these footsteps, and seeds have been planted for a new branch on the Big Island.

Our Administrative Board of Directors joins with me in thanking all of you who continue to keep the” clean, green and beautiful” legacy alive. We look forward to many opportunities to preserve and protect our environment during 2014. Our statewide Legislative Agenda is posted in this newsletter, a broad three-pronged action plan which was developed statewide during our Full Circle Meeting.

We ask you to join us in being an active steward for The Outdoor Circle. Here’s what you can ask of your friends and neighbors: Become a member, volunteer some time, and make visits to our website and fb page to catch up on our actions.

Alexandra Avery
President of The Outdoor Circle
Working to keep Hawai`i clean, green, and beautiful since 1912

(Image: Hong Kong Orchid by Petter Johansen)

Mahalo to everyone who supported us in 2013! We are deeply grateful and very pleased to announce that our year end donations doubled from the previous year — both in terms of number of donors and the amount donated. This is huge!! TOC’s supporters are really putting their weight behind the Exceptional Tree Initiative, which we look forward to implementing with tree plantings and park improvement projects over the next several years.

While we celebrate this significant milestone, we also recognize that we still have a long way to go to meet our fundraising goal. We know that the Exceptional Tree Initiative will need $50,000 to be truly successful. We are well on our way to meeting that goal, but are not quite there yet.

Thank you for helping us to start the year off right.