Hold on to what mattered.
Memory gives us a place to return, even when the person we love is no longer standing beside us.
For Dawne
Love does not stop.
Sometimes it takes root.
Dawne is part of the reason GroundCrew exists. Her memory sits quietly beneath the mission—in the belief that remembrance can become care, and care can become something living.
This page is not meant to explain a life in a few paragraphs. It is simply a place to honor her and the living legacy that grew from love.
A living legacy.
Not a monument to loss. A reminder that love can still create something alive.
Give love somewhere to go.
A tree cannot replace a person. It can give remembrance a living form that asks for care and continues to change.
Let something keep growing.
What begins as one act of remembrance can become shade, habitat, beauty, community, and a reason to keep showing up.
Remembering Dawne
A person is always more than the story of losing them.
GroundCrew's connection to Dawne begins with remembrance, but it does not end there. Her place in this story is not defined only by absence. It is carried forward through love, family, memory, and the things that grew afterward.
01
Love came first.
The meaning of a memorial begins with the relationship, the memories, and the life that made the person worth remembering.
02
Memory keeps changing.
Some memories arrive as photographs. Others return through places, seasons, songs, habits, stories, or a tree becoming larger each year.
03
Remembrance can become action.
Planting does not erase grief. It gives the hands something constructive to do and gives care somewhere tangible to land.
04
Living things ask us to continue.
A young tree needs water, attention, patience, and time. Caring for it turns remembrance from one moment into an ongoing practice.
Where GroundCrew began
The first planting was personal.
After Dawne passed, planting became something Joey and his family could do with their grief—an act that was physical, useful, and alive.
What started as remembrance slowly opened into something larger. Trees became a genuine passion: learning them, planting them well, watching them establish, understanding how much one healthy tree can give back to a place.
GroundCrew grew from that change. Not from an idea written on a whiteboard, but from a living thing in the ground and the realization that other people might need a reason to plant too.
“The tree does not erase loss. It gives love somewhere to keep growing.”
A living legacy
Her name sits close to the roots of everything GroundCrew is becoming.
The legacy is not a single tree or a single page. It is visible in the values that continue to shape the work.
Make memory active.
Carry people forward through actions that ask something good of us in the present.
Keep showing up.
A meaningful planting continues through watering, stewardship, patience, and attention.
Choose something living.
Plant trees that can become shade, habitat, beauty, shelter, memory, and part of a future landscape.
Help another person plant.
Let one personal reason become an invitation for someone else to put something good into the ground.
Plant for someone
Your reason does not have to be Dawne's story to belong here.
Every person arrives at remembrance differently. Some want a quiet tree at home. Some want a family planting. Some want a memorial in a shared place. Others simply want to do one useful thing with love they still carry.
GroundCrew's memorial work exists to help make that act practical, respectful, and alive.
For Dawne
Loved. Remembered. Still part of what grows next.
Some legacies are written in stone. This one keeps changing with the seasons.
GroundCrew Foundation • PlantsATree.com