An overgrown memorial at Van Buren Park has now been transformed into a butterfly garden thanks to the Van Buren Parks & Rec team and a youth program called R.E.A.L..
Van Buren Township’s Interim Parks Superintendent Ryan Drotar is new to the role and working with the youth program, but felt the youth learned a lot from it.
“They felt like kids don’t get to do service for the community very often,” he said.
Drotar says youth in REAL typically do projects like maintaining lawns for someone elderly or who has been in the hospital, but he was looking for another type of project to do with them when he noticed how neglected the circular “Garden of Honor” memorial at Van Buren Park was.
A memorial garden has been updated to include native plants to attract pollinators.
He and park staff tore out the entire old garden, prepared a simple waterfall and a dirt patch, and let the young people create.
“They were so nervous because there was no blueprint,” Drotar says. “But I kept telling them that nature doesn’t have a blueprint. We’ll give them dirt as the canvas and they can create.”
The garden contains cone flowers, bee balm, and other plants attractive to native pollinators, along with small stones the kids painted. A solar panel powers the small waterfall.
Van Buren Township Parks and Recreation posted to their social media when the project was complete saying, “Our R.E.A.L. youth rolled up their sleeves, got their hands dirty, and created something special for the entire community to enjoy — all while learning new skills, working as a team, and gaining real-world experience. Find the garden near the Veterans Garden of Honor and stop by to see their hard work in bloom.”
Cooper Mears is one of the young people who worked on the garden project, during his third summer as part of R.E.A.L. It’s a family affair, since both of his brothers have also been in R.E.A.L.
“Most of the time, we are visiting elderly people’s homes,” Mears says. “Helping them is a way to keep them in their homes, so they don’t get evicted.”
Mears says that planting the garden was a nice change.
“I wasn’t clear on the whole concept of what we were doing, but it was very fun building the waterfall and planting the plants.”
Mears is starting his freshman year at the University of Michigan but says he enjoyed the R.E.A.L. program so much, he might come back for another summer with the program, or he might try out for a paid seasonal job with the parks.
“I’ve already recommended the R.E.A.L. program to a couple of my friends, too,” Mears said.