Portland resident Nicole Helprin began the tree tradition in 2013
NEED TO KNOW
- A Portland woman started the wishing tree tradition in 2013 after being inspired by similar trees in California
- The tree has become a community hub, with wishes ranging from personal dreams to global hopes for kindness and love
- The wishing tree’s popularity has inspired similar trees across Portland and it even has its own Yelp page
One horse chestnut tree has been gathering wishes from strangers for over a decade.
Located in Portland on the corner of Northeast Morris Street and 7th Avenue, the tree tradition began in 2013, when a woman named Nicole Helprin hung a few of her wishes on a tree in front of her house, according to Oregon Live.
“I decided we were going to create a wishing tree and so we each made a wish we put it on, we made a sign, we put out some tags and that was it,” she told KGW-TV (via Click Orlando).
She soon returned from a vacation to find others had started putting their own wishes on it too…