History of our Company

Tree Amigos, the company that would later become New Roots Worker Cooperative, was founded in 100 Mile House, BC, in 2014, by Dani Meade. It was her effort to make “something new” in the planting industry. Around the campfire, planters used to talk about what would happen when they ran the company, but those grand ideas rarely came to be. Dani decided to put action to words, and Tree Amigos Contracting was born.

The early years of Tree Amigos saw successes and setbacks, but the company stayed committed to its vision of people-centric planting and high quality work. In 2017, a new idea emerged: democratic ownership and oversight through the cooperative model. Planting cooperatives had existed in the past, but were surprisingly absent from the current B.C. sector. 

In January, 2018, a provisional committee formed to explore the idea of cooperatization. It was headed by Ben Prunty, an activist, organizer and tree planter from Montreal who had served as President of the Concordia Student’s Union, and had helped to found numerous cooperative organizations in the city. With his guidance, the project began to take shape. 

Over the course of the next two years, countless hours of meetings, conversations, decisions and hard work culminated in the founding assembly of Tree Amigos Woker’s Cooperative, in November, 2019. Collectively, its membership had purchased the old company, transformed it, and established a new model for worker-ownership in the planting industry. 

Our organization now boasts over two dozen members across Canada and maintains a successful planting operation in the south Cariboo. We changed our name in 2021 to New Roots Worker Cooperative, to reflect our growth as an organization and represent our grounded commitment to worker empowerment.