Monarchs in Eastern Iowa members and Muscatine Pollinator Project members met in a "Meet 'n Greet" session on Sunday, March 4th at the East Side Recycling Center in Iowa City. The purpose of the meeting was to become more familiar with each other's groups and share information. It was a very informative meeting!
Muscatine Pollinator Project (MPP) is quite an active group. Among the things they are involved with are teaming with Muscatine Community College greenhouse to grow pollinator plants, working with schools, planting pollinator gardens and developing a 16-acre pollinator prairie in Muscatine, One of their members is a bee man and the group has partnered with a local brewery to produce "Pollinator Ale" out of the honey, from which they receive a portion of the proceeds. You can read more about the MPP at this Google search link.
Besides MEI members, we also had representatives from The Nature Conservancy-Muscatine Co., a Johnson County Master Gardener associated with Iowa City Monarchs, Naturalists from Muscatine County and Iowa County, and the Environmental Services Manager from Bridgestone Bandag (which has a pollinator garden at their Learning Center).
A good group!
Below are some photos from the meeting, taken by Monarch in Eastern Iowa's volunteer photographer, Larry Long.
Organizers Barb and Patty from MEI, and Dave Cooney from MPP.
We had a good turnout!
Kelly Guilbeau (right), from Milkweed Matters tells about
distributing milkweed seedballs during the RAGBRAI ride.
If you wish to ride with Milkweed Matters this year, click the link!
John Koch, Muscatine Water Resources Manger,
displays signs they had made.
Mom and son attended because this young boy is
very interested in butterflies. He is holding a collection
passed down to him from his grandfather.
At the end of the meeting two women who had gone
to Mancheros, Mexico to the J&M Butterfly B&B
presented photos of their adventure to see the
overwintering monarch butterflies clustered in the trees.
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