Community Profile

Pledge Status

Active

Pledge Date

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Program Year

2024

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Action Item Report

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Town of Kernersville

Kernersville, NC

Dawn Morgan

Mayor

Pledge Summary

Kernersville is a Town in the heart of North Carolina with a population of 28,000. The Town is committed to helping pollinators with the signing of the Mayor's Monarch Pledge. Our hope is that by engaging residents with educational activities more pollinator habitat will be accepted and installed throughout the community.

Community Spotlight

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Flower Giveaway

We gave away 12 pallets of flowers.

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Livestake Giveaway

Distributed 6000 livestakes (stream plantings) that are great for pollinators.

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2023 Shoreline Garden Kit

Distributed 300 plant kits with 2700 plants (300 A. incarnata) during annual Forsyth Creek Week.

Action Items Committed for 2024

Communications and Convening

  • Issue a proclamation to raise awareness about the decline of the monarch butterfly and the species’ need for habitat. This proclamation must incorporate a focus on monarch conservation.
  • Launch or maintain a public communication effort to encourage residents to plant monarch gardens at their homes or in their neighborhoods. (If you have community members who speak a language other than English, we encourage you to also communicate in that language; Champion Pledges must communicate in that language.)
  • Engage with city parks and recreation, public works, sustainability, and other relevant staff to identify opportunities to revise and maintain mowing programs and milkweed / native nectar plant planting programs.
  • Engage with gardening leaders and partners (e.g., Master Naturalists, Master Gardeners, Nature Centers, Native Plant Society Chapters , other long-standing and influential community leaders) to support monarch butterfly conservation.

Program and Demonstration Gardens

  • Host or support a native seed or plant sale, giveaway or swap.
  • Plant or maintain a monarch and pollinator-friendly demonstration garden at City Hall or another prominent or culturally significant community location.
  • Launch or maintain an outdoor education program(s) (e.g., at schools, after-school programs, community centers and groups) that builds awareness and creates habitat by engaging students, educators, and the community in planting native milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants (i.e., National Wildlife Federation’s Schoolyard Habitats program and Monarch Mission curriculum).
  • Add or maintain native milkweed and nectar-producing plants in gardens in the community.
  • Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.

Systems Change

  • Change weed or mowing ordinances to allow for native prairie and plant habitats.
  • Launch, expand, or continue an effort to change municipal planting ordinances and practices to include more native milkweed and native nectar producing plants at city properties.