$1,000 Green Grant Awarded to Sustainability Matters
One of thirty grants awarded throughout Virginia in June as part of our 12th Annual “Green Grants” Program is awarded to Sustainability Matters for their “Mowing for Monarchs” Initiative.
Sustainability Matters is a grassroots nonprofit organization rooted in the rural Shenandoah Valley that cultivates community through conservation education. It aims to empower community members to change the environment and their own lives for the better. Since its founding in 2018, it has hosted over 200 education and outreach programs!
Like most landfills, the Shenandoah County landfill has many open areas that are mowed twice annually, usually during the summer. Originally planted with turfgrass, the fields have, over the years, become a mixture of the original grass, vital native wildflowers that have self-sown, and invasive plants. Among the native plants is a particularly strong seedbank of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) that is the main host for monarch butterflies.
Unfortunately, under current practices, the milkweed is mowed down just when the monarchs most need it…and the mowing itself likely kills thousands of monarchs and monarch larvae.
To help reframe the mowing schedule at the Shenandoah County landfill to accommodate monarch butterflies’ lifecycles, Sustainability Matters has been awarded a $1,000 Green Grant. Funding will be utilized to perform a comprehensive, season-long survey of the Shenandoah County landfill fields, documenting the variety and relative concentrations of native and invasive plants, as well as of monarchs and other insects.
The survey will be conducted by over a dozen Sustainability Matters volunteers, high school ecology students, and professional entomologists. The results will help inform an ideal “Mowing for Monarchs” schedule for the landfill.
The results from the study will also help produce a template for other sites with a similar situation, thus scaling the impact of positive benefits. This is a win for native plants, pollinators of all kinds, and the beautiful monarch butterflies.