Community Profile

Pledge Status

Active

Pledge Date

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Program Year

2025

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Action Item Report

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Village of Wauconda

Wauconda, IL

Jeff A. Sode

Mayor

Pledge Summary

The Village of Wauconda is a northwest suburb of Chicago and has a population of 14,084 residents. In addition to the beautiful 304 acre Bangs Lake, it is also surrounded by the Wauconda Bog Nature Preserve, Lakewood Forest Preserve, and Millennium Trail and Greenway. Additionally Wauconda has been designated a Tree City USA member since 2007. In 2021 the Village reevaluated some of its priorities to include sustainability and conservation programs.

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 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.
  • Engage with Homeowners Associations (HOAs), Community Associations or neighborhood organizations to identify opportunities to plant monarch gardens and revise maintenance and mowing programs.
  • Engage with developers, planners, landscape architects, and other community leaders and organizers engaged in planning processes to identify opportunities to create monarch habitat.
  • 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 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).
  • Host or support a monarch butterfly festival that is accessible to all residents in the community and promotes monarch and pollinator conservation, as well as cultural awareness and recognition.

Systems Change

  • 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.
  • Launch, expand, or continue one or more ordinances to reduce light pollution to benefit urban wildlife.