In Philly’s Pollinator Network, the birds and the bees have our backs, too

Shawn Coleman Jr. and his dad, Shawn Sr., true city folks, went camping for the first time in early July. They woke to all kinds of birdsong, the buzzing of insects and bees flitting on flowers they’d never seen up close before.

The experience was magical. But what made it even more so was this wildlife encounter was not in the countryside, but in a small park not far from where they live in Southwest Philadelphia.

“Most of the time you see the bees and bugs and stuff, to be honest, you think, ‘Oh, swipe it away.’” said Shawn Jr., 16. “But it was just the experience of being able to see the bugs out in the open where you were able to see the bugs go around and see how the plants are so beautiful.

“We’re in the city,” he said, “but experiencing the city is different from experiencing it outside in the wild.”

Shawn Jr., a dual-enrolled student at Boys’ Latin and Community College of Philadelphia, and Shawn Sr., 56, an accountant with Mainline Health, are two of the newest allies in the Philadelphia Pollinator Network.

The pollinator project is a jointly funded $1 million effort by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Audubon Mid-Atlantic, the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, Thomas Jefferson University, and the National Wildlife Federation, with collaboration from many community organizations.

By the end of the project’s funding next summer, organizers estimate they will have completed about 50 sites, introducing native plants — flowers, bes, fruit, and trees — to attract native pollinator species of bees, butterflies, insects, and birds. Those sites range from urban gardens in former vacant lots to small beds and plantings around neighborhoods.

The pollinator project sites are mostly located in Southwest and West Philly where the sponsoring groups already have community partners to be continuing caretakers of the gardens, the organizers said.

The pollinators do best with a network of gardens near each other.

“They don’t like to travel long distances,” said Aneca Atkinson, director of Audubon Mid-Atlantic’s Delaware River Watershed Program. ”They want to rest often, and when they do, they want to be able to eat and rest comfortably.”

Pollinators are important to the life of plants and to our food supply, but species like many of our native bees are at risk and in decline.

As much as these creatures can use our help, supporters of the pollinator project say they can and do help humans in ways we might not expect.

“Even beyond the ecological services they provide for the many plants we rely on, there’s an intrinsic value in just that connection with nature and kids being on their own block and seeing fascinating creatures,” said Robin Irizarry, manager of the watershed program. “I think it’s opening up avenues for people to have that spark, that wonder.”

The largest concentration of pollinator project activity is in the Kingsessing section of Southwest Philly. In addition to smaller sites around the neighborhood, It has enriched two existing community-created parks that once were vacant lots – the Cecil Street Community Garden and the Glenda Ann Christopher Memorial Park.

Both parks are just blocks from the July 2 and 3 mass shootings that left five people dead.

Victoria Miles-Chambliss, 68, is one of the community leaders in the eight-year effort to establish the Cecil Street garden. That’s included fighting the city and anyone who stood in the way of the oasis they wanted to create. They also partnered with groups willing to help, including the pollinator project.

Like many in Kingsessing, Miles-Chambliss was touched personally by the July shootings. She knew victim Joseph Wamah Jr., 31, well – “such a great young man.” And she is friends with a relative of Octavia Brown, 33, who was driving when bullets injured one of her 2-year-old twins.

In the horrified days that followed, many people in the neighborhood stayed to themselves.

But on the Saturday night just five days after the massacre, a group of young men assembled in the Cecil Street garden, amid the strawberries, echinacea, and flowering bushes planted by the pollinator project. They set up a barbecue, played some music, and shared their food with neighbors.

“They wanted to give back,” Miles-Chambliss said. “They came in to use the garden as a place of getting together so they could talk and understand life is precious.”

Pollinators and parks may not be able to cure a city’s ills, but supporters of programs like this believe they can be a balm.

“We know that green spaces are not the solution for gun violence,” said Carmelita Rosner, John Heinz community engagement specialist, “but they provide a place for communities to come together to celebrate or grieve, or both those things at different times. And we know that green space promotes mental health. It can make a difference.”

The birds, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators bring an added sense of life and marvel to those spaces.

That’s part of what Greg Thompson, community activist and local ward leader, was hoping for when he decided to go ahead with a planned urban camping adventure for his Brother to Brother mentoring program on the weekend after the mass shooting.

“I wanted to give young people cultural, educational and environmental things to do with their minds and open them up to new worlds,” Thompson said.

The event was held in Glenda Ann Christopher Memorial Park, a community garden Thompson was involved in creating and a pollinator project site that bears portraits of neighbors who have died, including through violence. Once trash-strewn, it’s become a neighborhood sanctuary.

The camping adventure was a weekend of joy for the nearly 50 men and boys. Besides the cookouts and swimming in the park’s pool, Audubon staff took them on a night nature walk. They watched a hawk soar, felt an owl’s feathers, and found their way by moonlight, serenaded by nature’s night chorus.

“In your mind, it’s like, ‘this is so incredible, I’m seeing something I’ve never seen before,’” Shawn Coleman Jr. said.

Shawn Sr. knew about the shootings earlier that week but decided that violence wouldn’t keep him and his son from the camping trip at the Kingsessing park. He thought it was important “to bring something positive to the young people, instead of running away from it.”