Bellies for Butterflies
The East Providence/Seekonk Rotary Club announces “Bellies for Butterflies,” a new fundraising event to raise money to purchase wildflower seeds for the community to plant and save the local butterfly habitat.
“Bellies for Butterflies” will be held from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 at Healthtrax Fitness & Wellness, 15 Catamore Boulevard in East Providence (near the Seekonk line). Tickets are $20 pp and include hot and cold appetizers, non-alcoholic beverages, and a belly dance performance featuring local professional and semi-professional dancers from the community.
Each year, the Rotary Club purchases high-quality wildflower seeds in bulk, to package them into envelopes to pass out to parade-goers at the Riverside Memorial Day Parade. This year’s parade will be held on May 26, 2025.
“We are proud to do our part to support Operation: Pollination, a global environmental initiative to help save monarch butterflies and other important plant pollinator species right in our own backyards,” states Betty Galligan, a past president of the East Providence/Seekonk Rotary Club and former belly dancer who created the parade event for her Club in 2021. “Each Memorial Day, our colorful parade contingent grows as we now have more volunteers helping to pass out the seed packets dressed as butterflies, bumble bees and lady bugs.”
According to Galligan, seventy-five percent of the world’s plant species are dependent on pollinators, such as the monarch butterfly, to survive. Without pollinators, 30 percent of food in grocery stores would disappear.
Each winter, colonies of monarch butterflies gather annually in Mexico and fly to the southern U.S. to lay their eggs on milkweed plants. Their offspring then flies as far north as Canada to lay their own eggs. After a third generation of butterflies hatches at the end of summer, a fourth “super” generation heads back to Mexico – typically a 6,000-mile round trip journey and the longest known migration of any insect species. Data demonstrates that western U.S. monarchs have undergone a significant decline estimated at more than 95% since the 1980s.
The public is encouraged to plant wildflower seeds in their own backyards and garden spaces to attract butterflies. “Everywhere along their migration route, butterflies need a habitat to survive. If we can improve the habitat in our own community, we can be part of the solution,” states Galligan, whose late mother, a butterfly enthusiast, in part inspired the project. “Native plants provide nectar that nourishes the butterflies as well as other pollinators such as bumblebees, bats and moths.”
To purchase tickets to “Bellies for Butterflies,” and for more information about The Rotary Club of East Providence/Seekonk, visit: www.epseekonkrotary.org.
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/2863188-0
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2863188-2
