SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — As San Diego braces for temperatures close to 100 degrees, a local nonprofit is working to make the heat more bearable by planting thousands of trees in underserved neighborhoods — while a community center is stepping up as a year-round refuge from the heat.
Tree San Diego has been serving the community for 11 years, planting more than 15,000 trees across underserved neighborhoods in the city.
"Our goal is to increase the density and quality of San Diego's urban forest," Mandy Conry, program manager for Tree San Diego, said.
I met with Conry near the Southcrest Recreation Center, where she explained the nonprofit's mission to combat the urban heat island effect — a phenomenon where cars, buildings, and asphalt cause urban areas to become significantly hotter than surrounding regions.
"So our goal is to transform, you know, barren landscapes into green spaces that can be utilized for all of the community," Conry said.
Trees play a direct role in lowering temperatures, according to Conry.
"They reduce temperatures through a process called evapotranspiration, where they take water from their roots and they release it through their leaves," Conry said.
The effort to keep San Diegans cool isn't limited to the outdoors. Inside the Sherman Heights Community Center, residents have a place to escape the heat.
Francisco Soto, programs manager at Sherman Heights Community Center, said many of the homes in the surrounding neighborhood are not equipped to handle extreme heat.
"Most of these houses around here are 120 years old, so they're not, uh, very updated basically, and um many of community members even though they have their house they've been living here forever it's a little tough," Soto said.
The community center's concrete construction helps keep the building cooler than many of the older homes nearby.
"We're fortunate to have this building that's made of concrete that makes it a little bit easier to control the heat," Soto said.
The center currently uses fans to keep the space comfortable, but Soto said upgrades are on the way.
"We just have regular fans, uh, but we, we're working on getting, uh, a couple of big fans because we don't have AC and that will help us a lot," Soto said.
Those upgrades are expected to expand the center's services, bringing more outdoor programs inside and allowing the building to serve as a cooling center throughout the year — not just in summer.
"We open the building for anyone who wants to just get away from the heat," Soto said.
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