Tree Mortality Aid Program (TMAP)
A quick drive up Highways 108 or 120 offers a stark visual of the havoc five years of drought and a tiny bark beetle are creating throughout the Sierra. The loss of timber and the resulting fire threat, reduction of property values and diminished watershed and viewshed has clearly developed into a crisis of immense proportions.
Although efforts have been undertaken to address the crisis within public rights-of-way, many private property owners have been left trying to sort out how to deal with multiple hazardous trees on their own property. For those with limited financial resources, the tree mortality crisis has become an unexpected drain on those resources. That is where TMAP may be able to make a difference.
The Tree Mortality Aid Program (TMAP) is a project of the Sonora Lions Club. It is designed to help fixed income retirees and low income residents receive financial assistance for the removal of dead trees that have impacted their properties.
The Sonora Area Foundation was invited by the Lions Club to participate in the project by receiving tax deductible charitable donations to a fund that will then be awarded back to the Lions Club as grants to pay for tree removal work approved for eligible properties. Program eligibility will be determined by another agency partner in the project, the Area 12 Agency on Aging.
A TMAP Fund has been established at the Foundation to receive charitable donations from individuals or families, small businesses or large corporations. Because we do not charge administrative fees, one hundred percent of the donations received by the Foundation will be awarded as grants to benefit the affected property owners.
For more about the program, pick up a copy of the Summer 2016 edition of Friends and Neighbors Magazine and take a look at the excellent article by Chris Bateman on Page 55.
To make a charitable donation to the TMAP Fund at the Sonora Area Foundation, you can send a check made out to the Foundation to 362 S. Stewart Street, Sonora, 95370 and put “TMAP Fund” on the memo line. Or, you can donate online through our website at www.sonora-area.org and click on the red “Donate Now” button at the top of the home page.
Our countywide neighbors need your help – through your charitable donations to the Foundation, let TMAP provide a possible answer.
Read an overview about all the local efforts in the news story “Mustering Tree Mortality Aid For Those In Need” here.
