With our record-breaking rain this year comes a record amount of growth of vegetation that will become dry and flammable during our hot summer season leading to wildfires. Every year wildfires eat up thousands of acres of precious forests.

The California State Society of Daughters of the American Revolution (CSSDAR) State Regents project is to raise funds to allow the National Forest Service to plant acres of seedlings that will grow and eventually replace trees lost during wildfires.

This project is a scion of a President Franklin D. Roosevelt era campaign.

FDR proposed the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) in 1933 to solve two problems.

It would offer employment to Americans aged 18-26, who were out of work because of the failing economy, and it would help the national forests that were in deplorable condition due to over-harvesting, devastating fires, and little replanting. The CCC would revitalize the national forests and employ millions of young people.

In 1939, and culminating in 1941 on the NSDAR 50^th Anniversary, the DAR began a program to establish a memorial forest in each state. Each chapter across the country was to pledge, at the very least, one acre of pine seedlings. Five dollars an acre at a penny each equals 500 trees. The CCC , under the supervision of the U.S. Forestry Service, would do the actual work of planting and care.

With new assistance from the CCC, the National Forest Service started its program of replanting and growing pines in national nurseries throughout the country. These pines would be sold to organizations and individuals for a penny each to help share with the cost of the project – hence the tern “Penny Pines”. It was patriotic and popular enough that stores and post offices set up buckets for people to put pennies into, and that’s how the NSDAR became involved. Some of the states could not participate due to prolonged droughts in their state and the National Forest Service recommended planting many large trees on private lands.

State of California NSDAR members dedicated a DAR marker and 50 acres of trees at Charlton flats on June 18, 1940. Forty-six additional acres were planted in Mendocino National Forest and 1,200 trees were planted in Mt. Ashland watershed and dedicated as a DAR Forest on June 14, 1940.

Every $68 donation will provide an acre of seedlings. In support of the CSSDAR State Regents project, the Letitia Coxe Shelby Chapter donates funds raised at each monthly chapter meeting to the Penny Pines Project. As of their June meeting, they have donated funds to plant more than 11.5 acres of seedlings.

The Penny Pines Project is sponsored by the National Foresty Service in both Northern and Southern California.

– Editor’s note: This copy was provided by Lori Borkert.

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