Butterfly Effect Project celebrates fifth season at new Jamesport garden
The flowers have faded and most of the vegetables have been picked, but things have never been greener for the Butterfly Effect Project‘s intergenerational community garden.
Now in its fifth season, the Garden Club has put down roots at a new, permanent home at 1146 Main Road in Jamesport.
BEP celebrated its new garden with a ribbon-cutting Oct. 4, marking a milestone for a club that has grown from pandemic necessity to community anchor.
Photos courtesy of Butterfly Effect Project
The garden club sprouted in 2020 while BEP was still headquartered at First Baptist Church in Riverhead. Its members, affectionately known as ‘Butterflies,’ needed a safe activity during the pandemic.
“Gardening was a great, safe activity for all of the Butterflies to come together,” said Brienne Ahearn, the garden club ambassador. “There was a lot of food insecurity going on at that time. So, it ticked all those boxes.”
The garden has grown every year — 37 BEP members now till, plant, maintain and harvest it.
“We wanted to make it bigger, so we could feed more of our BEP families and the larger community. And just have more members as well,” Ms. Ahearn said.
Beyond the hands-on work, the members learn science and create art as part of the club.
“The kids learn all the cycles that we have throughout the growing season, what plants we plant during those different cycles,” Ms. Ahearn said. “We do a lot of fun activities, too. We’ve painted some of the posts and designs. We learned all about pollinators, and we have garden club journals, where they do observations and sensory activities.”
The goal is to grow enough food to feed participating families and others in the community who need it.
“Eventually, we would like to expand to where we’re growing more food for the families and communities, not just the children and their parents who are partaking in this community garden,” said Jonathan Zenir, a longtime hobbyist and volunteer who deserves much of the credit for planning and executing the garden.
Mr. Zenir discovered BEP at its Juneteenth celebration and ended up weeding the garden, then donating his own plants.
“It was a very hot day, but I just started weeding,” Mr. Zenir recalled. “In my truck, I happened to have a bunch of seedlings — shishito peppers, calendula, zinnias — that I was planning to plant elsewhere. Next thing I know, I went to my truck, grabbed all these seedlings that I had started and just started planting them in the garden.”
Among those honored at the ribbon-cutting was Shelby Hart, 19, a longtime member who graduated from the Butterflies this spring. Ms. Hart has been with the club since its start and is considering a career in horticulture.
“I’ve studied horticulture, I have a horticultural certificate,” she said. “I learned a lot from there. I love helping with the kids and teaching them different things and helping out in the garden. It’s like a family to me.”
Kathleen Harris, a garden club volunteer since 2021, finds the time with the children inspiring.
“I just enjoy gardening, and the kids’ faces when they see all of the vegetables, the tomatoes, the different colors, the different varieties,” Ms. Harris said. “It’s inspired me to just keep going. That’s what the garden club does for me. And this year’s garden is really awesome because we started from the ground up. We had nothing here, and now look at all that we have, which is absolutely beautiful.”
Looking ahead, the garden club hopes to renovate the on-site barn for tool storage and possibly add greenhouses to extend the growing season.
“It would be great to be able to grow more things and things that aren’t for our climate, where you can have them overwinter well in a greenhouse outside, or you could just naturally have those seedlings start and under natural sun as opposed to grow lights,” Mr. Zenir said.
