NEBRASKA CITY – A Nebraska organization has role to play in an international tree planting movement that is sweeping social media this week.

Forbes reported Tuesday that Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, donated $1 million to TeamTrees.org. As of Wednesday afternoon, donations to the site have grown to represent over 8 million trees planted.

Austin Mackrill, vice president of Arbor Day Farm at Nebraska City, said the idea for the website came from Youtuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, who wanted to celebrate his 20 million followers.

He put out a call to YouTube followers asking how he should celebrate and the suggestion of planting 20 million trees by the end of 2020 rose to the top.

  Teamtrees.org

 

Mackrill said Mr. Beast contacted the Discovery Channel, who then contacted the Arbor Day Foundation.

Mackrill: “We’ve been working with them to build a website, it’s called TeamTrees dot org. Go there. You can donate. We started it last Friday at 2 o’clock and we’re not even a week into it and we have 8 million trees planted.”

For every dollar donated one tree is reserved for planting by 2022.

Mackrill: “It’s just an amazing example I think of social media, the power of social media. It’s an organic initiative that these influencers online had and their  followers are going crazy about it. It’s been really fun to be a part of it and watch.”
As of Wednesday, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has been added to the top donors list.