The monarch butterfly performs an amazing 6,000-mile round-trip journey from Mexico to as north as Canada — one of the longest known migrations of any insect species.. Everywhere along this butterfly’s route, the habitat it needs to survive is disappearing. The plight of the monarch has made news in recent years, and from schoolchildren to scientists, people are trying to help. Chris Stein, a ranger with the National Park Service, is one of them.

Stein knew the power of Rotary to make things happen. In June 2015, Stein, who was then superintendent of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, invited Marlene Gargulak, the incoming governor of Rotary District 5960 (parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin), to park headquarters to discuss the loss of vital habitat for monarchs and other pollinators. He asked her, “What do you think Rotarians could do?” 

Gargulak’s idea was to ask clubs to improve pollinator habitat in their own communities. “Or better yet,” she said, “let’s ask all the clubs, in all the districts from Canada to Mexico, to each do a project. This led to to the initiation of Operation Pollination. At least 31 clubs in the district have carried out pollinator projects since 2015, including one in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, where the city donated a plot of land for a butterfly garden and tree planting. A member of the Rotary Club of Barron County Sunrise, Bruce Goode, also hired a master gardener to design butterfly gardens in front of his Rice Lake restaurant. “We have two butterfly gardens,” Goode says.

Operation Pollination can be a local project or it can be a district project. Can you imagine if each district from Canada to Mexico embraced this idea? What if 1.2 million Rotarians, in districts around the world, pledged to do work on behalf of pollinators? Wouldn’t that be something?