Have you heard about Habitat Heroes? It’s Habitat Builders brand new grant program to promote and support native pollinator gardens on school property. We just completed the inaugural installation at Rocky River Elementary and dedicated the garden on April 16, 2025.

 

As part of the school’s Career Day Program, the 5th grade students write their hopes and aspirations for the future and place them in a time capsule for that year. The leader of this program and school nurse, Ilene Jackowitz (Nurse J) wanted to create a garden to hold the yearly time capsules and to inspire the students to dream big. Habitat Builders stepped in to suggest a design and help choose and procure native plants. The garden grew a little larger than the initial grant intended and Habitat Builders decided to help with an additional grant to purchase the plants. This is how the Habitat Heroes Grant Program was born.

 

With the further assistance of the NC Wildlife Federation (plant/dollar matching program), John Thomasson (plant procurement), Lisa Tompkins (Carolina Heritage Nursery) and another plant grant from Backyard Butterflies (18 native plants), this garden has 20 different plants, a total of 101 plants and is certified as a Wildlife Habitat with the National Wildlife Federation and is on the Butterfly Highway through the NC Wildlife Federation.

 

The 5th graders helped plant the garden and will continue to maintain it through their new Garden Club, and the UCPS landscape maintenance crew helped install the garden footprint, edging and mulch.

 

This project has been such a joy we want to do it again and again. So we created the Habitat Heroes Grant Program to help Union County schools create pollinator gardens that are little pockets of wildlife habitat. If you are interested in learning more about this program or donating to the program contact us at info@habitatbuilders.org.