CREATING AWARENESS

[Teresa]

I'm so excited!! My local newspaper wants to do a story on me and my monarchs!!!! What do I do? What do I say? I know the basics but i'm afraid they'll want more detailed info that I don't know. I do know that i'm going to tell them about this site and everything they are doing. I want everyone in this county to know the importance of milkweed! I just want to creat awareness!! woohooooo

[Pat]

The Phila Inquirer told me the same thing a couple of months ago after I sent them some pictures ~ their suburban editor hasn't gotten back to me yet though. Just give your newspaper the basics and refer them to the monarchwatch.com site for details and science if you don't have the answer to a specific question, and you'll do fine. Enthusiasm and interest will carry the story. When it runs, send us a link!

[Teresa]

I will, promise

[Keith Petrosky]

This makes me just want to post signs, "Plant Milkweed For The Monarch Butterflys!"

[Teresa]

I want the title to be "Monarhs need our help"

[Jim]

That's great - as Pat mentioned, be sure to post here when the article is published. We'd certainly appreciate any publicity for Monarch Watch and our Monarch Waystation Program...if you can get them to include our web address and/or the web address of the Monarch Waystation Program that would be great as well. If you need any additional information or if the newspaper wants to check anything with us please feel free to pass along our contact information and we'd be happy to help out in any way.

Thanks for helping to spread the word about monarch habitat conservation!

[Pat]

Well I'm going to wait 'til after Labor Day to get back with the Inquirer guy when I'll have a decent group emerging every day; actually now I'm glad they didn't come earlier in the summer because I didn't have my official Waystation sign yet! (It has to share front yard space with the National Wildlife one but it does have its own tree.)

[Teresa]

The lady from the news will be at my house tomorrow morning. I haven't ordered my sign yet but I too have my National Wildlife one

[Keith Petrosky]

I think im going to make my own sign on paper, tape it to a stick, and put it by the monarch habitat. That way I wont get in trouble because it's easy to remove, and mabye someone will see it and know not to destroy the milkweed.

[Teresa]

The lady from the newspaper was here for over 2 hours. She was VERY interested and got to see one butterfly emerge and took tons of pictures. It's going to be in next saturdays paper. I'll send a link. She took down the website address and will put that in too.

[Keith Petrosky]

Wow thats great that will get alot of awareness!

[Jim]

Great Job Teresa!
This is exactly what we need people to do and it is an excellent way to promote the Monarch Waystation Program - imagine what we could do if the other 230+ Monarch Waystation stewards had an article in their local paper...we could have 1,000s of Monarch Waystations registered/certified in no time. Wow!

We'd love to hear more about Monarch Waystation "success stories" so keep 'em coming

[Teresa]

Thanks Jim I just hope I had all the facts right She said she would check out the website for info too so i'm sure she'll find all the info she needs. I even gave her a bunch of seeds to plant and share

[Teresa]

My article is going to be in tomorrows newspaper I'm anxious to see how they wrote it up. I'm not sure when/if it will be in the online version but here is the website to watch.

www.mountvernonnews.com

[Teresa]

My article was published today The only thing wrong is they have my last name as Wilson and it's Warner They also stated there was only 144 waystations so she got that wrong too. I'm number 144. Sheesh. Oh well, I just hope for alot of requests for milkweed seeds.

[Keith Petrosky]

Just as long as they get the point across about the monarchs. Well my homemade sign is still standing and nobody had disturbed the milkweed which is good because there are alot of monarchs this year. Mabye next year there will be even more.

[ButterflyLady_IL]

I followed the downlink. Good picture and good information!
How big a circulation is the Mount Vernon News?
I also hope you have lots of requests for seeds.
(Too bad about the name error.)
Good Job & Good Luck.

[MercuryButterfly]

We enjoyed reading the article here in NM! Keep up the GREAT work!

Ron

[Teresa]

You know, I'm not sure how big the circulation is here but the population is about 30 thousand. (I think) I've had teachers contact me to talk to their kids and i've had people request seeds and even offers of seeds and milkweed which is awesome! I was really hoping for more of a response tho. I even had someone offer me money for the seeds and the project but I don't want to accept money. I asked him to send a donation if he wished to the tag recovery fund. That would mean more to me than anything

[Jim]

I asked him to send a donation if he wished to the tag recovery fund. That would mean more to me than anything

Thank you for your continued support, Ms. "Wilson"

Don't be discouraged about the level of response...you'll probably never really know how many people take action based on the article. As far as the inaccuracies are concerned, welcome to the wonderful world of print publishing; at least you'll know what you need to make clear in your next interview/article.

Just keep up the good work, continue to build on what you've started and watch for more Ohio Monarch Waystations to join yours in the Registry:

http://www.monarchwatch.org/ws/registry.html

[Teresa]

I have to admit i've learned alot thru this experience

[butterflylover]

Theresa that is so cool about your newpaper running that article. I found out about Monarchwatch through a article just like that. About a lady in Ohio, Got a lot of neat ideas from her aritcle. Became a member here and have been tagging three years now. I am not a waystation member but would like to be. I have a huge garden that I have full of common milkweed. I wish my local paper would do an article on me as I have never seen so many cats as I have this season. 380 I am up to with only 13 fatalities, and only one deformed butterfly. pretty good statistics so far. Maybe I could e-mail our local paper. I have a lousy digital camera though. Thanks for sharing your article with all. Debbie Moore (Butterflylover) Northeast Ohio

[Teresa]

That's all it would take, an email to the paper. The lady that came to see me brought her own camera, took tons of pics but only ended up using only one.

[dzyg]

Very cool article even though she got a few things wrong.

[Teresa]

I know, I was kinda upset. Just hope the message got out.

[Teresa]

Today I met with teachers at our local JVS about becoming a certified waystation and they are going to do it They have a beautiful garden area and already have everything they need except a few more milkweed plants. They are very excited about doing this. They will have the carpentry class make cages and the science and horticulture will take care of the plants and the monarchs. My first recruit

[MONA]

CONGRATULATIONS TEE! You go girl! You are the Monarch queen in my book. Thanks for all the help you've given to me. I've printed your article and it it now in my Monarch Journal. Good luch with the JVS. George said you'd be the Monarch Queen before the seasons out. Thanks again for everthing but especially for the adventure.