Belvie Rooks & Dedan Gills

Belvie Rooks and Dedan Gills are the cofounders of Growing a Global Heart, a vision that inspires the ceremonial planting of memorial trees to honor the forgotten souls of the past—victims of urban violence, the Underground Railroad, and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Route in West Africa—as part of a process of collective healing and to aid in the struggle against climate change. The Growing a Global Heart motto is: “Healing the wounds of the past—in the present—while creating a sustainable future.” This project brings communities together to ceremonially plant trees in honor of the millions of lives lost to acts of violence, and to seed new hope for humanity and the earth. Their vision is to inspire the planting of millions of trees. “To plant a tree is to plant hope.” They both have essays included in a book that features Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Jane Goodall and others, entitled Global Chorus: 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet.