Turning East Bay Streets Into Urban Relief

Oakland (CBS 5)  -- The “tree lady” is a modern day version of Johnny Appleseed.

Kemba Shakur wants to plant trees as a means of transforming parts of urban Oakland and Richmond. She hopes to change hot and dusty concrete streets into living landscapes.

Kemba and the young people she trains have planted more than 12,000 saplings through the “Urban Re-Leaf Program" she started in 1999.

“I noticed that many parts of this community actually looked worse than a prison,” Kemba says about the early days of the project. “In prison there are well-tended lawns, there's landscape, but here in a lot of the urban communities there's hardly any greenery."

Ashanti Khaleel has been living on one of the streets that have been replanted. She says she sees a big difference from when she moved in six years ago.

“I have like seven different species of birds, a ton of butterflies, you name it, it comes around,” Khaleel says. “I've had hawks come right here on my gate. All of which wasn't here when there were no trees.”

Other residents thank Kemba for helping to improve their property values. Her work is also teaching the kids the value of trees, and giving them a real world opportunity to work with math and science.

Kemba has loved making things grow since she was a little girl. She is convinced that if more urban young people were exposed to greenery, there would be less crime on barren inner city streets.

For bringing some of that peace to urban East Bay neighborhoods, this week’s Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to “The Tree Lady,” Kemba Shakur.

By Barbara Rodgers