Drive around Robertsdale proper and you can’t help noticing the many beautiful old trees with spreading branches shading the streets. Many of the trees, like the one in front of the Robertsdale Public Library qualify as “heritage” trees.

Now, thanks to the work of the Robertsdale Parks Streets and Tree Committee, the city will receive a $20,000 grant from the Community Forestry Financial Assistance Program, sponsored and administered by Auburn University, to hire a certified arborist the help them identify heritage trees and to help the city learn how to care for them and keep them healthy.

Sonja Jackson, administrative assistant at the city’s utility department, and a member of the tree committee, applied for the grant in June.

“An arborist will help us learn how to keep the trees healthy. Even when you cut the limbs, which we have to do sometimes, you need to know how to do it the right way,” Jackson explained.

Sue Cooper, a city council member who also serves on the committee, said, “We’re delighted to be able to use this money to get an arborist to help us with a survey of our heritage trees and give us information on how to better care for the trees we have,” she said, adding, “We have tree situations come up pretty regularly. What we don’t want to see is any more heritage trees on the ground!”

Cooper said the old trees are an important part of what makes Robertsdale special and she feels that protecting them is important. “It’s important for future generations that we continue to protect our trees into the twenty first century,” she said.

Jackson has applied for and gotten other grants for the committee, including a $10,000 grant in 2006 for restoration after the destruction caused by Hurricane Ivan. With that grant, trees were purchased and replanted along the walking trail, in the parks, around city buildings and businesses and on private property

“After Ivan, we lost roughly 500 trees and we wanted to go back and replenish the trees. We planted almost 100 live oaks throughout the city,” she said. The first grant Jackson applied for and got for the city was a from Alabama Power Co. for $1,500 in 2005. Those funds were used to plant ornamental trees along the walking trail. “We wanted to beautify the trail and also provide shade for the people using it,” she said.

Jackson said she had never written a grant application before 2005. “I got the book Grant Writing for Dummies and then I started writing them,” she said, with a laugh.

The committee is now working to find the right arborist for the job. Jackson said she hopes that some of the city employees can also be trained and certified to help care for the trees.

For Cooper, the grant represents and step in the direction of protecting the city’s beautiful old trees.

“I’m still dreaming of tree-canopied streets in Robertsdale,” she said.