Love Thy Pollineighbor – June 2018

#1: After careful deliberation in the wake of last fall’s City Council meeting in which only 50% of the councilors showed support for Jacksonville’s Bee City Certification, the Jacksonville Bee City committee has reorganized and changed our name to the Jacksonville Pollinator Society. The team is growing, and we are just as inspired as ever to protect the pollinators of this sweet community.

#2: What’s joyful, lively, and buzzes with enthusiasm? It’s the Jacksonville Pollinator Appreciation Day event! On July 8, make a beeline to the Jville Market on 5th and D Street for Jacksonville’s 2nd Annual Pollinator Appreciation Day event! We’ll be on the lawn of the historic courthouse partying until the flowers come home.

Here’s what you can expect at the event: Fun. Plus more fun. Plus a little more fun.

Jacksonville Pollinator Society team members will be on-hand to answer questions and share information about native pollinators, nontoxic ways to manage weeds and lawns, and growing pollinator gardens. Native milkweed will be for sale. Milkweed is the only plant monarch caterpillars eat. Given that monarchs have declined 90% over the last twenty years, they need all of the milkweed we can grow.

Bring the kids, because we’ll have insect stickers, bug tats, and cool activities like making bee antennae and a scavenger hunt with unbeelievable prizes. I’ll be selling my book, Well Earth Well Me! to help raise proceeds for the team.

Representatives from Pollinator Project Rogue Valley, Southern Oregon Beekeepers Association, and Southern Oregon Monarch Advocates will be there to share their wisdom about the many ways to protect our precious pollinators (PPRV), to educate about honey bees using an observation hive (SOBA), and to teach us about all-things monarchs (SOMA).

We have our sponsors to thank for it all. It’s because of their support, we are able to host this fabeelous event.

“To make a prairie it takes a clover
and one bee,

One clover, and a bee, And revery.

The revery alone will do, If bees are few.”

~Emily Dickinson

If only that were true, but in these modern times, reverie alone will not do.

Prairies need bees.

We all do.

So, on July 8, we’ll see you?

Does it put some honey in your hive or a bee in your bonnet to want to join our effort? Protecting pollinators is all of our beeswax, so we welcome—with open wings—those who want to share their passion for pollinator conservation. Bee a part of the Jacksonville Pollinator Society!

Questions? Shoot me an email: kendaswartzpepper@gmail.com.