A Greener Community

By Dolev Klein,
Grade 12 student at Holy Trinity Catholic High School.

Back in grade eleven biology class, I learned that bees are not just important for producing honey. For the longest time, I thought of certain animals as what they make. Chickens make eggs, cows make milk, and bees make honey. But did you know that bees – and on even broader terms, pollinators – are the building blocks that hold up our community? Now, when I learned this, it was not something that stuck in my mind for very long. Fast forward a year, and I find myself at the table of Cornwall’s Youth for Climate Action Working Group (YFCA), discussing the importance of pollinators, biodiversity, and green spaces in our community.

While our community excels in ensuring green spaces remain a core part of the Cornwall experience – having 40+ public parks for us all to enjoy – it is an undeniable fact that we are losing substantial amounts of greenery every year. In recent times, 18 acres of the once lush Gray’s Creek area has been removed, and with it, the many birds, trees, flowers, and pollinators that lived there.

Realizing the importance of both maintaining our green and sustainable city and educating our community about its many benefits, the YFCA has begun work on an ‘Educational Community Pollinator Garden’ located outside of the Benson Center. This garden, designed in partnership with the City of Cornwall, will feature a wide variety of plants that are native to our area, such as black-eyed Susans, asters, violets, and much more.

The garden will also facilitate a wide variety of educational resources for interested individuals, such as guided tours of the garden, signs describing the importance and individual features of each plant, and a community engagement program which allows anyone to donate native plants directly to the garden!

The YFCA will be attending the Transition into Spring event on Saturday, March 16 at the Benson Centre, with more information about our Educational Community Pollinator Garden, and other initiatives run by the group. Our community garden project would gladly accept volunteers interested in supporting the initiative. All interested individuals are encouraged to reach out to either a member of the YFCA, or the City’s Sustainability Project Coordinator, Angela Parker, at: [email protected]

Together, let’s keep Cornwall green and biodiverse!

For more information on TransitionCornwall+ or to add you name to our mailing list: transitioncornwall.com