Oak Harbor Garry Oak Society

The Oak Harbor Garry Oak Society comprehensively addresses the need for Garry oak conservation from three different angles - educating the young and old about the Garry oak, performing crucial outreach and research, and preserving the oak by planting hundreds of Garry acorns and seedlings and associated ecosystem plants. By accomplishing great progress in each of these three functional areas, we can ensure a lasting legacy of the Garry oak in our community for generations to come.

The Oak Harbor Garry Oak Society (OHGOS) is a nonprofit, grassroots organization consisting of volunteers and community leaders concerned about the future of the Garry oak on Whidbey Island. Through valuable partnerships with a wide range of community organizations, public entities, and private citizens, we are raising the community's consciousness of this iconic tree by planting and protecting Garry oaks for future generations. Founded in 2015, we have ambitiously accomplished a significant amount in just a short time. Hundreds of acorns and seedlings have so far been planted. OHGOS always aims for win-win scenarios in every aspect of our work. We strive to be an important, respected resource for our community.

The Oak Harbor Garry Oak Society was founded in 2015, and since then we have worked to form valuable partnerships with many landowners and stakeholders on Whidbey Island. Through these partnerships, we have been able to conserve the Garry oak by planting and protecting many acres of Garry oak tree habitat. Through research and first hand experience we have developed a planting process that ensures a high degree of tree survivability to further our success. Our group is growing rapidly and as we add more volunteers and continue to fundraise we will expand our programs and offerings to the community. Our Board of Directors brings together skilled, well connected individuals that provide an amazing amount of support and guidance to our group, and our volunteers are the heart of the organization. We have volunteers growing local Garry oak seedlings for outplanting in the community. Our very unique and successful fundraising efforts, which involve selling wood craft items made from sustainably collected Garry oak wood, has been a blessing and has allowed us to further expand our community program offerings.

In only a short amount of time we have accomplished so much! Through strong community partnerships we have accomplished more to benefit the Garry oak in our community than has been done in over 150 years. Hundreds of new Garry oaks have been planted, acres of new habitat has been created, and thousands of people have learned about the Garry Oak and why it's so important to conserve. We look forward to continuing our momentum by expanding our Garry planting program with ambitious projects that will add many more acres of Garry oak habitat to Whidbey Island. We aim to have the Garry oak incorporated into the Oak Harbor Public Schools curriculum to teach future generations about the Garry oak trees. We will continue to maintain the Oak Harbor Post Office Native Plant Garden, the only native plant garden in Oak Harbor. Our goal is to continue to expand our membership and volunteer base so that we can increase services to our community.