I was able to share the beautiful moment of tagging and releasing with a girl from the Ronald McDonald house going through treatment at the hospital. She had such an amazing time holding the butterflies and watching them flutter off to Mexico. I was also able to tell many people about what I had learned and they were all fascinated at how just a small butterfly could have such an amazing life...

Although I hated the thought of living together with these insects, I would wake up each morning excited to see how the caterpillars have evolved overnight. Even the mere sight of seeing the caterpillars eat from the leaves evoked a joyous sensation that I was doing something that would help the environment.

I decided to plant native plants in my backyard instead of a lawn. I plan to replace the berm in front of my house with flox, a native ground cover sometime soon as well. The Monarchs Matter Summer Program and a lot of the work at ReWild in general really inspired me to try and help the environment...