Last Saturday, hundreds of volunteers fanned out across O'Fallon Park in north St. Louis, digging holes and hauling mulch to plant a new generation of trees where a tornado ripped the canopy away last year. The saplings, bright, small and wrapped in burlap, are the most visible sign of recovery. All around them, though, the park still shows what the storm did: splintered trunks, wide stumps and bare stretches where deep shade used to be. For nearby residents, the work is part practical push to bring back cooling tree cover and part symbolic move to rebuild the neighborhood's green backbone.
City forestry staff teamed up with nonprofit partners to replace roughly 350 trees lost in the May 16, 2025 tornado, according to the City of St. Louis. The event, organized with Forest ReLeaf of Missouri, Great Rivers Greenway and neighborhood groups including the Black Healers Collective, opened with a grounding ceremony, then shifted into hours of steady planting and mulching across the park.
Scars still visible
Even as new trees went into the ground, crews were still grinding stumps and hauling away massive root balls the tornado had yanked up, leaving large open patches scattered across O'Fallon Park. Neighbors have been blunt about the damage. "They probably lost 300 trees out of here," Jason Broomfield told KSDK, while Darius Gardner said the park "still looks like the tornado hit."
Part of a citywide plan
The O'Fallon effort is one piece of a longer game. Partner organizations and city officials are coordinating multi-year plantings across public parks to rebuild the canopy the storm shredded. Forest Park Forever reports that Forest Park alone is expected to see roughly 6,000 replacement trees planted over the next five years as part of a long-term restoration plan.
How neighbors can help
Forest ReLeaf of Missouri and the City maintain a running calendar of plantings and stewardship days where volunteers can sign up to help replant and care for young trees. Coverage of last week's O'Fallon Park event highlighted the broad turnout and encouraged residents to keep an eye out for the next chance to pitch in, according to First Alert 4 and organizers.
