Like the Lorax, this volunteer “speaks for the trees”
- Jeff Schober
- May 1
- 8 min read
Raising from seed, planting, and stewardship are important tools
as Letty Milito and friends aim to revitalize urban nature
On a cool, sunny spring day, Letty Milito hiked alone at Tifft Nature Preserve. With a keen eye, she recognized bare ground in need of cover. Scraping a dip in the earth with her foot, she dropped a handful of seeds into the depression, then continued walking, confident now that nature would fill the empty space over time.
Sounds filled the sky. When she looked up, cardinals and chickadees flocked around her, chirping and flapping wings, eager to be fed.
“I felt like Snow White,” she said. “It was really cool. There’s always something to see here.”
Milito, 64, a Town of Tonawanda resident, has been volunteering for more than 15 years at various locations around Buffalo: the SPCA, the Darwin Martin House, with Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Habitat For Humanity.
For the past eight years, she has logged plenty of time and attention at Tifft Nature Preserve, south of downtown Buffalo. Near Lake Erie along Route 5, Tifft sits atop land that was once a shipment center for coal and iron ore. In the 1950s and 60s, it served as a garbage dump before transitioning to a nature preserve in 1976. Its 264 acres have five miles of trails and boardwalks.
The property is filled with invasive plants, but a restoration project is gradually removing those, and repopulating the land with native species. Milito and a team of volunteers have turned their passions for the outdoors, nature, and gardening into a mission.
“Letty is dedicated and thoughtful, and she takes ownership of the work she does,” said Zach Goodrich, Director of Preserve Operations at Tifft, a job he has held for eight years. “Most of our volunteers come to do something positive but also love the social aspect of meeting up with the same people every week. Letty takes it one step further. This is not just a task for her. She really wants to see this through and succeed.”
Milito views the trees as her legacy. She plants, nurtures, repairs, and catalogs thousands of trees. She even gathers seeds from Erie County forests and local public parks, knowing that with proper stewardship, they will grow to find a permanent home at Tifft.
Year-round experience
“I was already volunteering before I retired,” Milito said. She left her job as a chemical engineer three days after she turned 50. Around this time, she began volunteering at the SPCA, where she and a group of friends constructed a waterfowl enclosure that was transported to the Tonawanda location. That was followed by a hexagonal owl habitat, built in her driveway before being shipped off. For a while, she tended gardens at the Darwin Martin House. But seasonal opportunities left her seeking more winter projects.
“I’m a biker and a hiker, and my husband and I are very active,” Milito said. “I need to do things in the winter more than the summer.”
Tifft fit the bill, keeping her active and engaged, allowing her to follow her passion. This past winter, she lamented, was the first time in her tenure that weather was too cold to log regular hours.
“You never know what you’re going to do,” she said. “I could be doing boardwalk repairs, or trail maintenance, or build birdhouses. I could prepare tubes for a huge tree planting project. Last year we planted 1200 trees and shrubs, and this year, we’re planning for 3000.”
More than planting, Milito is passionate about preserving and protecting existing trees.
“We fence the trees,” she said. “We have too many deer and too many beavers. If deer rub their antlers on trees, it can take off the bark all around, and the tree dies. We can’t leave trees unprotected here.”
Her friends have joked that Milito is the Lorax, a character from Dr. Seuss’ 1971 book related to environmental issues. The Lorax “speaks for the trees.”
Sue Haefner is a retired high school teacher and medical technologist. Three years ago, she began volunteering at Tifft and has worked alongside Milito often.
“She can’t walk past a tree that needs help,” Haefner noted. “She’ll say, ‘Oh my God, there’s another one.’ She’s a perfectionist who doesn’t do anything halfway. She’ll repair whatever deer knock over.”
Milito remains haunted by the time she accidentally damaged a tree.
“When I first started, every dead tree I found would stab me in the heart,” Milito confessed. “Once, we were cutting buckthorn and I chopped down a tree by mistake. Sue said, ‘You’ve got to let it go.’ I finally got over that.”
Before Milito arrived, a huge tree-planting project at Tifft spanned five years between 2010-2014. Once she began volunteering there, Milito was adamant that those trees deserved extra love.
“We have to protect those trees,” she insisted. “We already have ten years into them. I started putting wire cages around them. It can be very windy along the lake, so I’m frequently standing up trees that are in tubes. Some were planted with wooden stakes, and when the stake rots, the tree will fall over. If it’s a young tree, you can stand it right up. It’s a constant job. There’s no end. The trees have become my life.”
Growing at home
Eight years ago, when Milito began at Tifft, saplings were purchased out of state and brought to Buffalo.
“The plants arrived on a tractor-trailer and we had to move them,” Milito recalled. “Keeping them alive until they were planted could be a challenge. We have some hot summers and no one was around on weekends to water them. A lot of plants died, unfortunately.”
A joint project between Tifft and nearby Silo City helped solve those issues. Silo City grows plants in a greenhouse. When Tifft needs foliage, now they buy locally. This reciprocal agreement benefits the environment, according to Goodrich.
“In ecological restoration, it’s ideal to grow plants that have a genetic origin close to where you’re planting,” he said. “I can buy a red maple from a local nursery, but the chances are low that the tree’s genetics originated in Western New York. Genetics developed here over millennia are better adapted to flowering time, fruiting time, and when they will leaf out. Now a red maple from Virginia would probably do just fine here. Although we don’t always get it, that’s the lofty ideal of local genetics.”
Whenever possible, volunteers work to achieve local genetics for Tifft’s plants. Milito and others visit public parks like Chestnut Ridge in Orchard Park, and Buckhorn Island on Grand Island to gather seeds. Milito brings the seeds home to clean.
“Some plants have one seed. Others have four or ten,” she said. “A pulpy seed, like winterberry or spicebush, needs to be soaked in water. You have to get the pulp off so you can grow plants from them.”
Milito explained that seeds need to be stratified.
“That means they go through a winter cycle of freezing,” she said. “Sometimes I fake it and put them in the freezer, but usually I just let it go.”
Using discarded blueberry and strawberry containers, Milito plants seeds and patiently lets them sprout in her backyard.
“Squirrels and rabbits are a problem, so I made my husband build me a tree enclosure, which is framed with wood and chicken wire to keep the critters out. I keep growing more and more things. Right now I have sweet birch and red maples growing in my yard. There are a few different kinds of oaks, shagbark hickories, and lots of spicebush.”
Upon reaching a certain age, the saplings will find a permanent home at Tifft.
“I have a saying that Letty loves her trees,” said Ellen Tomczak, 73, a retired medical technologist who has volunteered at Tifft for the past five years. “If you have questions about trees, Letty is the person. She loves trees and can’t help herself.”
Since they met, Tomczak and Milito have become friendly. Along with Haefner, they have undertaken hiking challenges, explored local waterfalls, and participate in a book club.
“Letty is a strong person,” Tomczak said. “When we’re volunteering at Tifft, we break into groups of two or three to put shelters around the trees so deer and beaver can’t get to them. Letty knows her stuff. She keeps a spreadsheet on what has been planted and what has died.”
Her strong personality attracted Tomczak right away.
“She’s very sure of herself and confident in her knowledge. If Letty doesn’t know something, she’ll say that. There is no sneakiness to her. She’s truthful and honest. I hope people appreciate her. She’ll fiercely defend those trees.”
“This is what she wants to leave,” Haefner agreed. “She and her husband do quite a bit. They repair benches, paint, and make signs. She’ll take kids on summer hikes, and has them spreading seeds along the way. That way young people have an investment in Tifft.”
Ride for Roswell
Milito’s husband, Vinny, is often alongside his wife, helping in whatever project she undertakes — whether at Tifft, building garden enclosures at home, or constructing habitats for animals. Like his wife, he continues to volunteer for multiple organizations.
“I keep dragging him into things,” she joked.
The pair have two children: Chelsea, 35, a forensic pathologist who lives and works in Rochester, and Samuel, 33, who develops software for Amazon in Seattle.
For 11 years, Milito was a logistics manager for Ride for Roswell. Although she is no longer involved, her husband is.
“I had never even been to Ride for Roswell,” she said. “But I did logistics in my job and it turned out that I loved it. But it was physically and mentally exhausting. The job was so much more than just the day of the ride.”
Ride for Roswell takes place on a Saturday, but the days leading up to it were filled with organizational details.
“Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were all booked,” she recalled. “The day before was from 8 a.m. to 9 at night. Then I was back at 4 in the morning on the day of the ride, going strong until 8 at night. I had a radio and people called me with things they needed. Requests would be stacking up and I’d have to prioritize everything. My brain was going to explode.”
In contrast, time spent at Tifft is often solitary, or spent with smaller groups of fellow volunteers and workers from AmeriCorps. Milito recognizes that her focus tends to sharpen when she is surrounded by nature.
“It settles my brain,” she said. “Sometimes I listen to music. Sometimes I listen to the animals. There are times when I’m walking, looking down to avoid tripping hazards, and when I look up, there’s a deer six feet away staring at me. At Tifft, I find things to be so peaceful. We all need to appreciate the trees.”
Text © 2025 by Jeff Schober
__________________________________________________________________________________
Jeff Schober has a journalism degree from Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree in English and History from the University at Buffalo. He retired from teaching English and Journalism at Frontier High School and is the best-selling author of ten books, including the true crime book Bike Path Rapist with Det. Dennis Delano, and the Buffalo Crime Fiction Quartet. Visit his website at www.jeffschober.com.
Steve Desmond is an award-winning photographer. With his son, Francis, he is the author of A Life With A Purpose which raises money for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy research. To view more of Steve's work, search Facebook under "Steve Desmond" and "Desmond's PrimeFocus Photography," or on Instagram at "Stevedesmond9."
__________________________________________________________________________________
Did you like what you read? If so, scroll to the top of the page and click “Login/Sign up" on the right. If you're social media savvy, we have a Facebook page. Join us and we'll be your friend. Or follow us on Instagram. About once each month, we’ll let you know about a new Buffalo-based story… for free. Check our catalog of past stories too, which can be read below, with more choices on the home page.