In July of 2022, the City of Laurel became a Bee City USA® affiliate!
Bee City USA is an initiative of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon.
Bee City USA’s mission is to galvanize communities to sustain pollinators by providing them with a healthy habitat, rich in a variety of native plants and free of insecticides. Pollinators like bumble bees, sweat bees, mason bees, honeybees, butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, hummingbirds, and many others are responsible for the reproduction of almost ninety percent of the world's flowering plant species and one in every three bites of food we consume.
“The program aspires to make people more PC-pollinator conscious, that is,” said Scott Hoffman Black, Xerces’ executive director. “If lots of individuals and communities begin planting native, pesticide-free flowering trees, shrubs and perennials, it will create large-scale change for many, many species of pollinators.”
As part of the City’s commitment to the Bee City USA designation the City’s Environmental Programs Manager designed a Sustainable Saturday event in September 2022. The event highlighted the importance of protecting and enhancing pollinators and brought together many organizations that are involved in creating safe habitats for pollinators. Leading the charge was Jimmy Rogers of the Enviornmental Affairs Commitee hosting the City's first "Bee City" table.
EAC Committee Chairman Councilman James Kole will lead the volunteer force of the City’s Bee City USA initiative. The Committee will hold educational seminars, offer hands-on workshops to plant gardens throughout the City, and create Bee City USA signage for those residents sustaining a pollinator-friendly garden.
For more information about Laurel’s Bee City USA program, contact Michele Blair, Environmental Programs Manager at [email protected], or [email protected].
For more information about Bee City USA, visit https://www.beecityusa.org/
For more information about the Xerces Society, visit https://xerces.org/
For information about four simple ways to help pollinators, visit https://xerces.org/bringbackthepollinators/