BY MATT KITE for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 10/9/2026
About 200 volunteers are expected to join the cause behind the slogan “Earth needs you!”
No one is quite sure how many times Green Tacoma Day has occurred. The event is about 20 years old, give or take a year, but institutional memory of the early years is fuzzy. So it’s only fitting that this year’s theme is alien. Maybe the idea came from outer space.
“It was established in 2005,” said Lizzy Matteri, a restoration ecologist for Tacoma’s Environmental Services Department and its Open Space Program. “Through that time, lots of staff were coming and going from different organizations. We can’t find the exact number of Green Tacoma Days. These days, we’re much better about taking data. We don’t have much from the early days.”
Featuring green-tinted artwork with bug-eyed aliens and flying saucers, Green Tacoma Day 2026 is bringing together multiple organizations, from nonprofits to government-run departments, to celebrate and nurture Tacoma’s greenbelts and natural areas. On Saturday, Oct. 10, volunteers will answer the call issued in this year’s slogan: “Earth needs you!”
“We usually have 200-ish volunteers,” Matteri said. “They get a ton done. It’s a really exciting and motivating event. It’s really rewarding to participate in it. They do a lot of awesome stuff.”
The math is impressive. From 2023 to 2025, Green Tacoma Day volunteers logged 1,705 hours, planted 467 trees, mulched 12,767 square feet, and collected 3,515 gallons of trash. Then there are the bushes and ground cover planted (2,785), the weeds removed (10,410 square feet), and the trees given away (603).
The team behind the hard work is the Green Tacoma Partnership, a broad-based coalition of organizations, businesses, and nonprofit groups dedicated to greening Tacoma’s urban environment. All told, 10 core organizations in addition to the city will join the effort this year: Pierce Conservation District, Parks Tacoma, Tacoma Tree Foundation, Washington State University, University of Washington Tacoma, Clover Park Technical College, Tahoma Bird Alliance, Pierce County Parks and Recreation, Washington Conservation Corps, and 360Tacoma.
“All contribute to environmental work in different ways,” Matteri said. “Some focus on getting trees out to the community. Some focus on education. All of these things are happening year-round, but Green Tacoma Day is when all of us get together for a very broad celebration. It is a day of stewardship, but it’s also a way to say thank you to those volunteers that help us out time and time again.”
From 9 a.m. to noon, volunteers will gather at seven different locations across the city and participate in eight different activities.
“The vast majority of the activities are related to habitat restoration, planting trees, planting native plants, and removing non-native plants like blackberry or Scotch broom,” Matteri explained. “People will mulch and take care of the green spaces.”
Other activities will include CPTC’s watershed festival at its outdoor learning laboratory at Flett Creek Preserve, a free tree giveaway and nature walk by Pierce County Parks and Recreation at Sprinker Recreation Center and Bresemann Forest, and storm drain marking by UW on its Tacoma campus.
Along with celebrating the city’s open spaces and volunteers, Matteri said, Green Tacoma Day kicks off planting season in South Puget Sound. Fall is the ideal time to plant, thanks to cooler weather and a steady increase in rainfall. Planting in spring and summer, in contrast, can be hard on plants, which often struggle to establish roots during the warmer, drier weather.
Those interested in volunteering should dress in layers, pack a water bottle, and bring rain gear if rain is in the forecast. Yes, this is a rain-or-shine event.
“The day is for everyone,” Matteri said. “Kids are welcome. Definitely check out the story map on the website. Look at the individual events and see what they offer. No experience required. We provide the gloves, tools, instructions, and snacks.”
The day’s success, meanwhile, hinges more on participation than accomplishments.
“For us,” Matteri said, “it’s about getting outside, watching folks meet each other and talk to each other and feel a part of the community and neighborhood, and also doing the actual work of planting trees and taking care of our green urban spaces. It’s really about stewardship of the land and feeling connected to nature. We couldn’t do it without the community.”
As if that’s not enticing enough, each volunteer can earn a free T-shirt commemorating this year’s interstellar theme. The green alien T-shirts will be given away on a first come, first serve basis.
Meanwhile, Tacoma’s open spaces will receive some much-needed TLC. In total, the city manages about 520 acres of open spaces, which range from greenbelts and forests to wetlands and steep slopes. As opposed to parks, which are built for recreational activities for children and adults, many open spaces aren’t suited for human use. Instead, they’re ideal for ecological benefits. Green spaces give wildlife places to forage and nest, help manage stormwater and filter pollutants from the air, and reduce the environmental impact of city-spawned problems like the urban heat island (UHI) effect.
To learn more or volunteer, visit greentacomaday.org.
