Building Community: Forestr.org Founders Yon and Nimone

Castro Valley residents and Forestr.org founders Yonaton Hardisty and his wife Nimone Li-Hardisty

Castro Valley residents and Forestr.org founders Yonaton Hardisty and his wife Nimone Li-Hardisty work with the community to clean, green, and glean the environment. 

Forest.org is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 2019. The organization works to help the community become cleaner, healthier, and have a more abundant future.  

The organization’s primary focuses are cleaning, greening, and gleaning. Cleaning includes litter cleanup across the community. Greening includes soil enrichment, planting trees, and sustainable food. Gleaning is the practice of harvesting crops and donating them to community members. Forest.org harvests food with permission from privately and publicly owned spaces and community members can donate from their own gardens. 

“We really want to be picking up that litter. We really want to return that food to the community. And in doing that, we’ve drawn a lot of people to us. Because people, I think, just in general, love the sense of action,” Mr. Hardisty said. 

He adds that Forestr.org has had great success with volunteers because of their events. 

“Many groups will have an event yearly or quarterly. We’re having events every single week, and in some cases — in most cases — with gleaning multiple times a week, so there’s lots of opportunity for people to be involved… for all of us to work together,” Hardisty said.  

In 2024, Forestr.org planted a redwood tree named Lana Luna. The tree is in Artemis Park at the Castro Valley Library. The tree was previously cared for by NASA and was a moon tree in the Artemis I mission in 2022. It flew around the moon. Castro Valley was selected as the only California recipient of a moon tree. 

Lana Luna was planted in memory of Lana “Luna” Carlos. Carlos was a 12-year-old Creekside Middle School student who was killed in a hit-and-run in 2020. 

Forestr.org has also recently launched a health portal. Originally, it was only available to members, but since November, it has been made available to the community. The portal provides information and resources about healthy living, mental health and wellness, financial well-being, and relationships. 

“I think everybody dances with a little bit of depression… but I have seen people and members and volunteers who have seriously struggled with depression and other issues getting out there in the land and touching the soil and seeing a tree grow, even for an hour a week, you know, it has been transformative,” Hardisty said.  

Hardisty said that there are many plans for Forestr.org in the new year. “Kind of more of the same. You know, it's really fun stuff. It's, it feeds the soul,” Hardisty said. 

One of the major plans for Forestr.org is Forestr University. This program will be an online course designed to teach people what gleaning is and how to start a gleaning program. Forestr University is not available yet, but Hardisty predicts that it will launch in the first half of 2025.  

Hardisty works in the software industry, specifically games and gamification. He said he often thinks about how he can “gamify” Forestr University so users will be more engaged and incentivize learning. 

“We'll start the basics, but really start to make this something that other communities can pick up and use as their tools to create forester little forests in their own area,” Hardisty said.  

Members of the community can help by volunteering at a variety of events. Calendars for cleaning, greening, and gleaning events are available on the Forestr.org website. 

“Come on out. Just come on out. We have a QR code. I'll run you down the safety issues really quick, and then we'll get to work, you know, five, 10 minutes, and we're doing it,” Hardisty said. 

For more information, visit forestr.org.