“It takes a village to raise a child.”
It’s an African proverb that most people have heard. It means that strong communities are needed to help a child grow, mature, and be happy, healthy, and successful. From my time in AmeriCorps, I’ve learned that conservation work also needs a village. The many challenges that natural environments are facing are not easily fixed with one solution; partnerships between people are needed for a lasting change to happen. For my major project, I was tasked with restoring native pollinator habitat at the White Sulphur Springs National Fish Hatchery. At the surface the project seems simple: get seed and apply it to ground. But I knew going in that without putting in more legwork the project would not hold up to the test of time. People need to be invested in the project and know that it matters in order for it to endure. And so I set out to build partnerships in the community and engage my new neighbors in hopes of getting them involved.
Marina, second from right, with some other ‘villagers’!
After doing some preliminary research on gardening – I’ve never gardened before – I was ready to tell everybody about this project. This was the start of building my connection to the community. One of the great things about being in a small town (the population of White Sulphur Springs is 2,398 and the population of Lewisburg, the county seat of Greenbrier county and only 10 miles away from White Sulphur Springs, is 3,831) is that it seems like everybody knows everybody and this was definitely used to my advantage. One of the first serendipitous partnerships I made was with the local school, Eastern Greenbrier Middle School. A teacher visiting the hatchery with his class on the field trip told me about the greenhouse that the afterschool program was trying to revive, this sparked my interest and I contacted Mrs. Campbell, the after-school coordinator, right away. Together, we created a plan that allowed the students to get involved with the garden. I would give a presentation after school on pollinators and come back to plant native wildflower seeds with the students which will then be planted at the hatchery. Getting kids involved was fantastic. I really wanted a younger generation engaged. But I also needed the wisdom of the older generation.
The manager at the hatchery gave me the contact of a waitress, Laurie, from a local restaurant. She and her mother were part of the West Virginia University Extension Service Master Gardeners program. They were just the experts I needed to help get the plants in the ground the proper way. After making initial contact, Laurie was excited to help. Though she did not have experience specific to native plants, she had gardening know-how and knew a lot of people. Laurie helped set up meetings with the local gardening club, which helped us recruit volunteers for the planting. She also put us in contact with Peter, a local native pollinator garden legend. Peter ran a nursery for decades before he retired. He still tended a large garden at home, much of which included native plants. He was my consultant. Peter helped me sort out the details, understand the ins-and-outs, choose the right plants, and connected me to reliable nurseries for purchasing plants. Without the guidance of experts, the garden would surely have struggled to germinate. The final villager that helped the garden grow was the hatchery manager, Craig.
Butterfly attending to some milkweed.
Craig was the one who initially mentioned a pollinator plot at the hatchery. It was mentioned just as an aside, with no expectation. What Craig did not realize was that he seeded an idea. I took on the project whole-heartedly. I understood the importance of native wildflowers to pollinators like bees, beetles, butterflies, bats, and birds. Wildflowers provide shelter and food. Wildflowers bring color and a wonderful aroma. I knew a pollinator garden would be the perfect addition to the fish hatchery. It would not only attract pollinators but human visitors as well. But Craig did more than plant an idea. Craig made sure that the plans came to fruition. In March, when the COVID19 was declared a pandemic, all non-essential work came to a halt. Unfortunately the seasons waited for no one, and the plants were on their way to the hatchery, with no volunteers to plant them. Craig, considered an essential worker, took it upon himself to get the >1000 of plants that we ordered and seeded with Eastern Greenbrier Middle School into the ground. While the end result was not the beautiful and lush wildflower meadow we have been envisioning for the last 4 months, the results were not disappointing.
At the close of my service, when I returned to the hatchery after being quarantined for 4 months, I walked through the pollinator plots that Craig planted. And what did I see, a butterfly visiting the milkweed that the village helped plant.
