We need your help after the City of Santa Rosa granted a permit to cut down a beautiful, 70-foot Redwood Tree known by neighbors as Rosie the Redwood.

UPDATE 6-20-26: Thanks to the generosity of several large donors and many, many smaller ones, we reached DOUBLE our initial goal of $3,000. We have paused further donations. We foresee rising expenses, so the extra funds will come in handy. THANK YOU, everyone!

PLEASE CONTINUE TO HELP BY SENDING YOUR EMAIL COMMENTS to local officials who can still affect this. We will be appealing to the Planning Commission this week, and we want to ensure City Councilwoman Victoria Fleming knows how upset people are by this. GoFundMe won't let us post their addresses, but you can figure it out:

Planning Commission at SRCity (dot) org

VFleming at SRCity (dot) org

cc: TM@RedwoodAge.com

By sending your email to TM@RedwoodAge.com, we will add you to our email list to keep you in touch through periodic updates.

Keep those comments coming!!

--Rosie's story continues below--

Rosie is healthy and stable. She's popular with neighbors -- from kids to seniors, who've watcher her grow for decades. They visit Rosie while walking through the McDonald Historic District of Santa Rosa, Calif.

Rosie lives on 13th St. (between McDonald and Spring). She cracked through the sidewalk that someone (foolishly) built over her roots long ago. Now, new landlords from out of town want to cut Rosie down rather than build a sidewalk around her. The City has granted them a permit, and we want to appeal. But it's costly do appeal.

Everyone agrees the sidewalk needs to be repaired, but we're asking that the new walkway go around the tree. There is plenty of room for this. The city often extends the curb out into the street to protect redwoods and other purposes. And the city's own tree ordinance says the city should protect trees like Rosie when possible.

The Press-Democrat ran a story about this: https://tinyurl.com/RosiePD

And KRON-TV has also done a story: https://tinyurl.com/RosieKRON

We've gathered 109 signatures from neighbors. Of the people we contacted, 95 percent say they want to save this beautiful tree. Dozens of other residents have written directly to the city, asking to save the tree.

An appeal to the Planning Commission costs about $850. An appeal to the City Council would cost another $850. And we'd like to have a study by an independent arborist to evaluate the tree. We're trying to raise $3,000. (Any extra funds will be donated to the city's parks.)

Please donate what you can to help us reach our goal of $3,000.

Our ability to save Rosie the Redwood depends on it.