Community Profile

Pledge Status

Request for More Info

Pledge Date

Sunday, February 9, 2025

Program Year

2025

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Action Item Report

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City of Rochester

Rochester, IN

Trent O'Dell

Mayor

Pledge Summary

Rochester is located in northern Indiana and is home to Lake Manitou. It is nestled in the center of Fulton County and is home to nearly 15,000 people. For the 2025 monarch conversation year, we pledge to expand resources to the Butterfly Garden to increase the number of native plants. Additionally, our Summer Park's Program will focus on raising awareness of the Monarch conversation initiative through community art and literacy projects.

Community Spotlight

Action Items Committed for 2025

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.
  • Create a community-driven educational conservation strategy, initiative, or practice that focuses on and benefits local, underserved residents.
  • Create a community art project to enhance and promote monarch and pollinator conservation as well as cultural awareness and recognition.

Program and Demonstration Gardens

  • Host or support a native seed or plant sale, giveaway or swap.
  • Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants along roadsides, medians, or public rights-of-way.
  • 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.
  • Reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals that are harmful to monarchs and pollinators and urban wildlife.