On January 17, 2021, volunteers from the Raritan Valley Branch returned to the East Brunswick Butterfly Park. It has been 5 months since we last visited the park in the summer, and the park we returned to was very different from the park we left. Because of the winter, the vast majority of the plants had lost their leaves and the vibrant shades of green were no longer there. We found that since we last cleaned the park prickers had continued to grow, even growing into the walking paths where they could easily catch onto and prick unsuspecting visitors with the thorns. Working carefully, we trimmed back the prickers while making sure to leave other plants unharmed. Meanwhile, we combed through the park and removed any trash left in the park, such as plastic bags, water bottles, soda cans, and even a CVS shopping cart in the middle of the plants. Leaving the Butterfly Park in its winter dormancy, we couldn’t wait to come back in spring to see the thriving plants we have helped to care for.
Volunteers: Benjamin Hong (1 hour), Tarun Sivakumar (1 hour), Amy Xu (1 hour), Xinning Lucy Liu (1 hour), Alicia Xu (1 hour), Jason Liu (1 hour), Kevin Xu (1 hour), Jessica Hong (1 hour)
