Following are Sarthak Prasad's notes from the introductory meeting on 7/16/2025.

Attended By: Eliana Brown, Layne Knoche, Andrea Wagner, Madelyn Craft, Ashley Belle, Justin Vozzo, Sarthak Prasad, Stirling Lemme

• Introductions happened
• Lumpkin Family Foundation
  
  • Greater C-U project
• Demo area on campus showing benefit of having native plants under established trees especially around ROW
  
  • Carbon sequestration
  • Some additional support of mature trees
• On the ground implementation
• Community Outreach
• Tree Management stepping stone
  
  • Making changes around the south quad area
  • Developing areas - underplanting similar to RORG
  • There is evidence in improving tree health with these plantings
• Even as a small area as a demo area

• What support are you they expecting?
  
  • Similar to RORG
    
    • Ryan and his crew for mulch
    • Support for coordination with the specific trees
    • Coordinating work orders
    • Additioanl treatments to the trees if necessary
    • To establish it - we would need of Ryan's group to kill the grass (herbicide application - maybe 2)
    • Application in August and September (1 month apart)
    • Areas that are not sidewalk bound - F&S uses a edge trencher
  • Check with county master gardener - arborists,
  • Low maintenance plantings
    
    • So that it is easy for implementation
• Providing materials to the people in the community

 Location

 Stay away from the main stretch on the quad

• What is the scale?
  
  • One tree - 200 sq ft garden?
  • South Quad?
• The foundation may be supportive of a larger scale project if there is sufficient/appropriate maintenance support available
  
  • We don’t want a difficult maintenance
  • Smaller spaces preferred
• Kirby Ave - South side strip between First and Oak
  
  • Very high visibility
  • Very high traffic
  • Salt
  • So there may be a chance that this area might fail -
  • Outside of scope - too big of an area
• Different native species around different trees in the same area-
  
  • Several small pockets of areas

• Architecture Building area - opposite to the Main Library - Preferred (First preference)
  
  • Gregory Dr
  • We want to have people from the community to be able to see and access this area - this area is a bit restrictive
• Trees around Krannert Center (Second preference)
  
  • Really great for Community
• West side of Armory
  
  • Construction upcoming - so don’t use this area 

Timeline

• Letter of intent due at the end of this month
• Letter of support
  
  • No need for the location
• Grants start -
  
  • October would be the start planning
    
    • For a year
    • Opportunity for multiple years - if you do a good job
  • We need the location for the application

• Application deadline  - September 5

• When do we plant?
  
  • Planning over the winter -
  • Spring 2026 (May) or Fall 2026 (September) planting
• When do we get the ARC approval?
  
  • August meeting

Funding

• Average grant allocation - $25k and max is $50k.
  
  • Would campus kick in some money?
    
    • SSC money

Maintenance

• MOU

To-do

• Letter of Support - due at the application process