In a multi-discipline, joint undertaking, the Moneta Garden Club’s Franklin
County Youth Committee members, Franklin County Extension 4-H staff,
Master Gardeners, and 44 Burnt Chimney Kindergartners (teachers and
parents) all partnered together on an outstanding project.
The Moneta Garden Club’s goal was to educate the Burnt Chimney
Elementary School kindergarten class about the life cycle and habitat
of one of nature’s most beautiful butterflies: the monarch. Instructions
included in-class lectures and hands-on outdoor class participation in
designing and planting a butterfly garden. The children were educated on
how to create a butterfly garden, with hands on instruction on how to plant
the flowers, milkweed and butterfly weeds on which the butterflies depend
in order to survive and reproduce.
Little did they imagine that this project would win the Blue Ridge District,
The Moneta Garden Club’s 2013-2014
Burnt Chimney Elementary School’s
Butterfly Project wins National Garden
Clubs (NGC) “Award of Merit” and a
$500.00 stipend at the NGC Convention
held May 3, 2014 in Norman, Oklahoma.
Virginia Federation of Garden Clubs, the South Atlantic
Region and then go on to win the National Garden Club
Top Award. The Growing Place garden center and Rocky
Mount’s Lowes donated or sold various items at cost for
this project.
The NGC Butterfly Award includes a Certificate of Merit
in honor of Deen Day Sanders, and a $500 donation
from Alice and LeRoy Overton, for conducting the most
comprehensive and effective project on butterflies, e.g.
habitat protection, protection of migratory routes, public
education, and establishment of butterfly gardens at school
or community sites.
The Gold Dusters Junior Garden Club of Moneta Elementary
School also won NGC’s “Junior Garden Club Horticulture
Award” -- First Place and a $25.00 prize. The Gold Dusters
have an ongoing “raised bed veggie garden” project, in
which students enjoy planting their individual square foot
raised beds with vegetables in the spring and fall. They
eventually get to enjoy the food to mouth experience in their
lunchroom, when the staff cooks and serves them their own
yummy vegetables.
MONARCHPROJECT
GETS
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Discover Smith Mountain Lake
Fall 2014
40
