The Earth
Root to Heaven
Nicole is the founder of Root to Heaven, a reforestation and regenerative-culture nonprofit.
Root to Heaven works alongside communities, municipalities, individuals, and land trusts on reforestation, regeneration, and rewilding. The frame is sacred ecology, not conservation alone — an ethos that centers Indigenous and elder knowledge of ecological reciprocity, and treats the land as a relationship to be kept, not a resource to be managed.
“Root to Heaven is Nicole’s prayer for the Waters of the Earth.”
Founded late 2020
1,000,000 plants
The original five-year goal: one million indigenous plants, trees, and seeds returned to the land.
Surpassed in 2024
Goal surpassed
The original goal was surpassed in 2024. An exact current total is being confirmed before it’s published here.
2025
Pollinate NYC
A new initiative in food sovereignty — reforestation and food-growth education in New York City, in partnership with The New School.
Where the work has happened
The work has moved with the people already on the land: an emergency reforestation effort in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia; tree donations to the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne, NY; and plantings in the Schoharie Valley, NY alongside the Waterfall Unity Alliance.
Nicole’s connection
This is hands-on work for her, not oversight from a distance. In spring 2022, she put more than 35,000 seeds and plants into the ground herself, in the Catskills.
Support the work
Donations are tax-deductible through Root to Heaven’s fiscal sponsor, M.A.I.S.C.