[gtranslate]
News

These 600 Youtubers are halfway to planting 20 million trees

Last week YouTuber and stunt philanthropist, Mr. Beast, joined forces with 600 other YouTubers worldwide for a simple cause: raise $20 million by the end of the year to plant 20 million trees. It’s part of an effort to flood the platform’s trending pages with content geared towards the climate crisis.

The Team Trees initiative partnered up with the Arbor Day Foundation, the largest non-profit membership organisation foundation dedicated to tree planting, and began to pick up speed. They had even managed to nab some incredible six figure donations from tech executives (including one from Elon Musk) and in just under a week, they passed the halfway mark.

Mr. Beast and 600 YouTubers have lead a fundraiser that’s exceeded half its $20 million goal in the first week. 20 million trees, here we come.

Inspiration for the movement birthed from Mr. Beast surpassing 20 million subscribers to his channel. A Reddit fan recommended he celebrate the milestone by planting trees for each subscriber in a Lisa Simpson meme and then the idea took flight.

Mr. Beast enlisted the help of fellow YouTuber and NASA alum, Mark Rober, to help with the project and Mark took the idea to the Arbor Day Foundation. For a foundation who normally racks big donations from larger organisations, Vice President of the ADF, Woody Nelson, sees the benefit of the smaller contributions and welcomes the YouTube community to support their cause.

This is by far the fastest climb to $US8 million in individual, single donations that the Arbor Day Foundation has ever seen” says Nelson. “It’s right up our alley.”

The campaign will be active until the end of the year. If you care to plant a tree or two or 100, you can donate here.