The author is a high school senior in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Clements Circle City Park was bustling with activity, as per usual. Kids clambered around on the playground while families picnicked in the sun. But in one corner of the park that hadn’t seen much activity in years, people gathered weeding, talking, and planning one joint effort: revitalizing a neglected, overgrown monarch butterfly waystation. To open up the meeting, all eyes rested on Schoolcraft Community College (SCC) sophomore Naz Cimsit as he spoke to a small cluster of fellow students, elected officials, and community members of all ages.

Livonia resident Naz Cimsit initially became interested in environmental work after seeing the poor environmental conditions in Istanbul, Turkey, which he visits annually. He started realizing those same threats were lurking closer to home, and felt a responsibility to take action in whatever ways he was able to within his community. 

After beginning college at SCC in Livonia, Michigan, Cimsit joined the Schoolcraft Environment Club, which had been in existence for just three semesters. Shortly after getting involved, he took on presidency of the club, rotating leadership every couple of semesters with fellow club member Jaron Ho. 

The Schoolcraft Environment Club was founded to allow students at SCC to get involved with local environmental efforts, regardless of their background (or lack thereof) in activism. “In my presidency, I’ve been very focused on community work,” Cimsit said. That has included efforts surrounding the prevention of the construction of data centers within Michigan and in Livonia specifically, local park cleanups, and now, a project Cimsit and the whole SCC team is excited for: giving a gone-to-seed monarch butterfly waystation a second life.

Monarch butterfly waystations provide milkweed to feed monarch caterpillars, native flowers with nectar to nourish butterflies, and host plants for larvae to sustain the hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies who migrate from the United States to central Mexico each year. 

The monarch butterfly waystation at Clements Circle Park is a circle of overgrown wildflowers and invasive weeds framed in by a ring of rocks separate from the park’s main playground. Cimsit and the Schoolcraft Environment Club are spearheading a collective community effort to revitalize the garden by pulling invasive species, introducing native plants known to attract and nourish monarch butterflies, and creating a comprehensive plan for keeping up with garden maintenance. 

According to Ginger Chisholm, sophomore at SCC and the Schoolcraft Environment Club’s graphic designer, the garden has existed for years, but has gradually fallen into disarray after the organization who initially created it slowed and eventually halted maintenance efforts. 

“They couldn’t keep up with it, couldn’t take care of it,” Chisholm said. “That’s why we’re up here now because we know that we can get this going again, we just need to get the ball rolling.”

Chisholm has been a member of the Schoolcraft Environment Club for just two months. This is one of the first major projects he’s been involved in with the club, and one he’s particularly excited for. 

“I’ve always loved gardens and gardening and I think it’s really cool that we have the opportunity to do this for a Livonia park,” he said. “This is a nice, well loved park and it would be really awesome to see this revamped.”

Cimsit believes that having a direct tie from SCC and their Environment Club to the Clements Circle monarch waystation will help ensure the long-term maintenance of the garden, as future generations of SCC students will be able to continue upkeep and growth of the garden for years to come. “We are trying to have something physical and tangible that we can say was uniquely performed by the club alongside community members,” he said. 

In addition to Cimsit, Chisholm, and other SCC members, the planning team also included local native gardening experts and environmental activists, a handful of residents of the Clements Circle neighborhood, and Livonia city council member Carrie Budzinski. Budzinski first entered office largely driven by a desire to contribute directly to bolstering the natural wellbeing of her home in Livonia. 

“I always cared about the planet,” Budzinski reflected. “But as a mom, I want my boys to live on earth, a green, vibrant, beautiful planet, and for other kids to have that opportunity, and so environmentalism is really important to me personally and is something that really motivated me to … take a more active role, so I ran for city council.”

Budzinski’s desire to support the younger generation is part of what motivated her to collaborate with her interns – Michigan State University junior Hana Sakkijha and Naz Cimsit and the Schoolcraft Environmental Club by extension –  on reviving the Clements Circle Park Monarch Butterfly Waystation. It was important to her that their efforts contribute to bridging the gap created by cultural, political, social, and life stage differences.

“[During the COVID-19 pandemic] in 2020 we were told to keep our distance, and I think in some ways we maintain that,” Budzinski said. “I want to do better at bringing people together and touch[ing] grass, as they say, in a literal sense around this space.”

Cimsit, Chisholm, Sakkijha and the rest of the younger contingent driving the Clements Circle Park efforts agree with her sentiments. For Cimsit, collaboration across diverse backgrounds and perspectives is one of his favorite things about the monarch butterfly waystation project, which has brought in participants from a wide range of life stages and political viewpoints. Through the diversity of the community driving the monarch butterfly waystation rehabilitation, Cimsit has been able to learn about the different motivations bringing people into their efforts. Some participants are driven purely by a desire to improve local park aesthetics, whereas others are passionate about preserving monarch populations or have entirely different motivations – but all are united by their main goal to rebuild the Clements Circle monarch butterfly waystation. 

“More than ever there is a very big focus on division, whether it’s generation to generation, political parties, organizations, steps in life, and to break down those barriers and unite under one nonpartisan cause … that is what creates a type of bulletproof community,” Cimsit said. “No matter what we can’t agree on, no matter what kinds of table-talk there is … you can’t really disagree, this is a nonnegotiable.”

Cimsit believes that a richly diverse community is key for the butterfly waystation to succeed, and that, conversely, one of the strongest ways to strengthen the Livonia community is through projects like the butterfly waystation. 

“I’ve been working with Democrats, Republicans, everyone across the board has been so passionate about doing the absolute best for our city,” Cimsit said. “That’s something that’s really heartwarming for me.”

The Clements Circle Park monarch butterfly waystation rehabilitation efforts are impactful and exciting for the Schoolcraft Environment Club for the residents of Livonia. More importantly, though, the collaborative nature of their project is representative of how much more effectively community change can be made when people are able to unite around one central cause. 

 “When we have this collective motivation and collective community where everybody is creating a positive and beautiful environment to be in both physically and emotionally, this is what really gets people active for years to come,” Cimsit said, “and creates a strong web of people working together towards this large goal which is doing what’s best for our environment and what’s best for ourselves.”