Andrea Koehle Jones, Founder and Executive Director
Journalist, author and environmental entrepreneur Andrea Koehle Jones founded both Love Trees and The ChariTREE Foundation in an effort to educate and empower kids about the environment. Andrea and her board of directors volunteer their time so more of your donations can go to helping kids help the planet.

“If children are going to make a lifelong commitment to protect the environment for themselves and future generations, they first need time to explore the wonders of nature,” said Andrea Koehle Jones, Executive Director of The ChariTREE Foundation. She says one of the best ways to learn about the environment is to plant, care for and watch a seedling grow into a magnificent tree.

Andrea has had a connection to trees since she was a little girl. The aerial photo on left is a 2010 photo of the first 5,000 trees she ever planted with her father more than 20 years ago. This was part of a family project to plant 120,000 trees on their property near Honeywood, Ontario. Whether she was planting trees, looking over the shoulder of her mother, an artist who specialized in painting trees, spending a month in the hospital after falling out of a tree or crashing her car into a tree at 17, she feels the universe was telling her to pay attention to trees. And she did.

On Earth Day 2006, she founded linked organizations The ChariTREE Foundation and Love Trees and has been giving trees to kids in Canada and around the world ever since. This year The ChariTREE Foundation has partnered with The Canadian Camping Association to plant almost 10,000 trees across Canada. Kids at 47 summer camps will have the opportunity to plant a tree, make a wish for the planet and return each summer to see how their tree has grown thanks to the generosity of ChariTREE donors.

Andrea has a Masters degree in journalism from the University of Western Ontario and has worked for CBC Newsworld in Toronto, Yellowknife and Vancouver as well as for various Canadian and international environmental organizations. Andrea is also an award-winning documentary producer, author of the The Wish Trees and she recently launched The Green News Network - Canada’s environmental news network. You can follow her on Twitter to stay current on the latest environmental news headlines.

Andrea Koehle Jones was in Copenhagen during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December. Earlier in the  year she was in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa planting fruit trees with students at some of the poorest schools in the world. The HIV infection rate among students was reported to be 60%. Watch video.

“There’s something so hopeful about planting trees,” said Koehle Jones. “I’ll never forget the children we planted trees with in Kwazulu-Natal and I’ll never stop trying to bring more children trees.”

To help support Andrea’s tree planting projects in Africa visit lovetrees.ca