The National Wildlife Federation

Community Profile

Pledge Status

Active

Pledge Date

Monday, February 13, 2023

Program Year

2023

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Action Item Report

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Town of Walnut Grove

Walnut Grove, MS

Brian Gomillion

Mayor

Pledge Summary

Walnut Grove is a small town in the heart of Mississippi with a population of just over 500. The town is just 1.62 square miles located in the Tuscolameta Creek swamp at the edge of the red clay hills region. The town has many patches of wildflowers and other planted beds throughout the Town great for pollinators. Mayor Gomillion and his leadership team have committed to saving the monarch butterfly and many other pollinators with his signing of the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge and looks forward to continuing to engage the community through building for pollinator habitat each year.

Community Spotlight

Action Items Committed for 2023

Communications and Convening

  • 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 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.
  • Issue a Proclamation to raise awareness about the decline of the monarch butterfly and the species’ need for habitat.

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.
  • Plant milkweed and pollinator-friendly native nectar plants in medians and public rights-of-way.
  • Add or maintain native milkweed and nectar producing plants in community gardens.
  • Display educational signage at monarch gardens and pollinator habitat.

Systems Change

  • Change weed or mowing ordinances to allow for native prairie and plant habitats.
  • Increase the percentage of native plants, shrubs and trees that must be used in city landscaping ordinances and encourage use of milkweed, where appropriate.