Interested in volunteering for the upcoming Butterfly Festival?

The event is planned for Saturday, July 11, and Sunday, July 12 at Close Memorial Gardens at Nathaniel Greene Park. The gardens have an established butterfly garden, and a Butterfly House is currently under construction. The event will include tours of the Butterfly House and garden, information stations about caterpillars and butterflies, children's crafts and activities, butterfly releases, and information and classes on gardening for butterflies.

The focus will be on native butterflies and the host plants they need to survive. The butterfly house and garden will also be open for group tours by appointment from May to October.

There are many opportunities to help, from filling the house with plants and taking care of the butterflies to giving tours or helping with educational activities. I have attached a preliminary list of volunteer opportunities for you to look over, to see what interests you. We are still in the planning stage and also welcome any ideas you may have.

Our next meeting will be Wednesday, March 4th, at 5:30 pm at Rutledge-Wilson Farm Community Park. Directions are below in case you are able to make it after all. Please feel free to pass along this information to anyone you know who may be interested - there are plenty of opportunities! If you are unable to attend the meeting, please do not feel that is a problem - just let me know and I will be happy to keep you updated via email, just send a message here: Please send me updates on the Festival .

If you'd like to see what positions that need to be filled, click here to download and view the list. The list is in pdf form and requires the free Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing. Most people already have this installed on their computers.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you,

Cindy Willis
Friends of the Garden

Hello!

This week we concluded our March Butterfly Festival meeting, where we finalized most of the events and matched volunteers with their interests.

Events include:

* Tours of the butterfly house and butterfly garden, and tours of the entire Close Botanical Gardens
* Children's crafts and activities, including a caterpillar petting zoo
* Classes on gardening for butterflies, native butterfly identification, and butterfly photography
* Butterfly and gardening Information booths from the Missouri Department of Conservation and Springfield Public Works
* Several vendors to sell butterfly host plants and garden accents
* Butterfly and caterpillar costume contests for kids and a butterfly kite contest
* Live butterfly releases
* And more!

The festival will be held July 11 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and July 12 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and there are numerous opportunities to help on the festival days and in the preceding months. If you are still interested in helping with the festival (and I hope you are!), there are opportunities to help in the following ways:

1. Docents for group and school tours of the house and garden, dates to be determined, between May 15 and October 1.
2. Designing event signage
3. Preparing educational materials
4. Assisting with the Butterfly Photography class
5. Children's Crafts and Activities
6. Helping visitors with the Caterpillar Petting Zoo
7. Acting as Master of Ceremonies
8. Photographing and/or taking video at the event
9. General event help (directing visitors, etc.)

Please let me know what aspect you would be interested in so we can keep you updated with relevant information! I will let you know when the next meeting will be held within the week.

Thank you,

Cindy Willis
Friends of the Garden