Above: A nearby environmental interfaith event has a Southborough connection.
The public is invited to an interfaith event this Saturday, encouraging volunteers to focus on caring for the earth. As part of the activities, participants can choose to help at a pollinator garden in Southborough.
The event “Many Faiths, One Earth: A Day of Service and Conversation” is organized by Central MA Connections in Faith. It will be hosted by Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough.
The May 9th event will kick off at the synagogue at 2:00 pm, where participants can sign up to select volunteering at one of the nearby offsite activities from 2:30 – 4:00 pm.
The options include volunteering at “local biodiversity or food insecurity gardens, or pulling invasive species at a local nature preserve”. (Those who volunteer to garden are asked to “bring gardening hand tools if you have them.”)
For those who aren’t physically able to to take part in those activities, they can stay at the temple to take part in nature-based activities and hear “presentation about environmental ethics across multiple faith traditions.”
The “biodiversity” garden referred to on the event page is the Whit Beals’ Biodiversity Through Pollination Garden at Beals Preserve in Southborough. (Scroll down for more on that.)
Volunteers are encouraged (but not required) to return to the temple for “refreshments and guided table conversations about how our ethical and faith traditions call us to care for the Earth.” That will run from 4:15 – 6:00 pm.
To learn more and sign up, click here.
Whit Beals’ Biodiversity Through Pollination Garden
Because this event is at Beals Preserve, I’ll remind readers that parking in and walking in the Main Street lot is currently prohibited. To read about that and where to park to access the site, click here.
The Beals garden is one of multiple garden comprised solely of native species plants intended to support native pollinators. The gardens include plant varieties that bumblebee species “at risk of local extinction” rely on.
The garden at Beals Preserve was established through a collaboration between the Open Space Preservation Commission (OSPC) and the Southborough Open Land Foundation (SOLF). It was installed in 2022, inspired by the success of the Town’s original Beecology Research Garden on Breakneck Hill Conservation Land. (That one was through a partnership between the Stewardship Committee and OSPC.)
According to OSPC Chair Freddie Gillespie, Dr. Robert Gegear, the scientific researcher that has been partnering with Town committees, took the photo right this week. It is of “one of our most at-risk bumblebee, Bombus fervidus” making use of the Beecology garden. She explains:
Having Bombus fervidus survive the winter is exciting and showcases that these gardens are successful.
As for the Beals garden, Gillespie describes it as a “real hotspot of biodiversity”. She reports that it has successfully attracted at-risk Bombus vagans bumblebees, along with many other bees, butterflies and birds.
