Gra Mar Acres Neighborhood Association

Root Nashville Update from Dallas Swindell:

Hi Neighbors! I wanted to remind everyone that we’re still offering free trees through Root Nashville and I’m helping to spread the word as your Planting Captain. So far about 30 households have participated in the offer, but there’s plenty of room for more! Take a few moments to look over the details below and sign up for your trees today.

Through August 31st you can go online and request Free Trees from Root Nashville. You can request trees for your own yard, or a local community space that could stand to bolster its canopy, via this link: https://rootnashville.org/get-free-trees/. 

If you have any questions about the program or process you can check the FAQ Page (https://rootnashville.org/faq/) and if you’d like to learn more about the species being offered this year, you can check out the Tree Catalog: https://rootnashville.org/tree-catalog/. Unfortunately, some of the tree varieties are already all reserved, but there are plenty of great options left to pick from in the catalog.

There is a wide array of native trees for all kinds of yards, and the Root Nashville team has provided us with a wide variety of tree sizes, rarity, and color/flowering (using filters on the Tree Catalog page will help find the ideal tree for each neighbor’s yard). Root was especially mindful of the limbs and trees lost due to the ice storm and NES’ recent pruning and have included tree species which were most resilient to similar storms.

If you have any questions or concerns about the program or a specific species of tree, feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. I’m looking forward to growing our canopy.

Upcoming Events

Porchfest 2026 (Round Two): If you aren’t familiar with Porchfest, it’s an incredible event where we’ll spend the afternoon walking the neighborhood and enjoying 15-20 min front yard music sets. Feedback on this year’s switch to spring was that October was much preferred! So instead of waiting over a year for the next Porchfest, we’ll just host another in October. I’d love all the help I can get pulling this one together, so in addition to yard hosts and artists, you can sign up to help plan or bring snacks/beverages. If you’re interested in hosting, performing, or helping, please sign up here and I’ll reach out later to start coordinating.

Halloween 2026: It’s time to start planning for the 2026 Spooktacular Spirit Award (our yard decorating contest) and thinking about trick-or-treating plans as well. We’ll open up submissions for the awards on the 1st of October with voting starting in mid-October. If you’re a local business owner who’d like to help out and contribute goods or gift cards for the prize, reach out to Allison Tinius at 334-791-5656.

Next Monthly Meeting

The next monthly meeting is set for Sept. 13th from 5-6 pm. If you have anything you’d like added to the agenda, please fill out this form. Remember, that these meetings are open to everyone, whether you just want to meet your neighbors or have ideas to contribute!

We’ll definitely be discussing the Halloween decorating contest and Porchfest. We’d love to focus on more kid and family friendly activities and to do so, we know we need parents involved. So, at the next meeting, we’ll look into either having some activities available to keep kids occupied or host the meeting somewhere kid-friendly like the new Hangout Cafe. More to come!