Garden Show A Success

Whew – that was a long work weekend! Monarch Watch put in over 100 hours at the recent Metropolitan Lawn & Garden Show in Kansas City.

Our 10′ x 30′ booth contained a cage full of monarchs, milkweeds loaded with caterpillars and pupae, a plant a seedling activity, video & slideshow of the overwintering sites in Mexico, lots of Monarch Waystation info, and a mini “Monarch Watch Shop” where a few promotional and educational items were sold in support of our program.

Attendees got a first look at the new t-shirts that will be available via the Monarch Watch Shop soon:

Chip took the stage to give a couple of talks about creating habitats for butterflies and other pollinators:

I don’t know if every single one of the expected 30,000 visitors stopped by to see us but we definitely talked to a LOT of people about Monarch Watch and about creating habitats for monarchs and other wildlife. The donations collected and the few sales we made helped defray our costs of participating in the three-day event – more importantly though, we hope that we encouraged a large number of people to get involved in habitat conservation through our Monarch Waystation program (and that they get them certified!). Given the show’s proximity to Monarch Watch HQ in Lawrence, we also expect to see lots of first-time visitors to our Spring Open House and Plant Fundraiser coming up in May.

All in all I’d say this event was a success – we need to get the word out about Monarch Watch and habitat conservation; starting close to home makes sense