Pioneer Environmental Programs

Caring for our environment is important to Pioneers. You will see us cleaning up parks and beaches, building trails and ramps and championing recycle projects. Our service projects make our hometowns cleaner, greener, safer and more inviting.  

Check out some of our stories below. Find your local chapter or club and volunteer today!

 After becoming concerned about the rapidly decreasing monarch butterfly population, Pioneers in Abilene, Texas devised a project to help. They tackled the problem by building a butterfly garden at Allie Ward Elementary school in Abilene that would also educate local school children.

The garden was designed as a habitat that would allow monarch butterflies to grow and reproduce–eventually creating a larger community of the butterflies. Many flowers and milkweeds were planted to create a space that resembles the butterflies’ natural habitat. Pioneers also took care to choose a spot for the garden where children do not play, so that the butterflies’ fragile habitat would not be disturbed.

Schoolchildren were involved in planting the garden, and the finished garden now serves as a place for the children to learn about the life cycle of monarch butterflies. Pioneers distributed educational materials to all first grade students about the life cycle of the butterfly, and each elementary student was allowed to visit the garden. Pioneers chose to disseminate information about the problem with school age children in the hopes that they would share it with their families and learn ways to better protect the species.

Through this project, Pioneers created a beautiful habitat for monarch butterflies, and they were also able to teach local children about the importance of preserving endangered species and other natural resources.

 One of the five service areas that Pioneers focuses on is the environment. To show their commitment to preserving the environment for future generations, a group of Pioneers in California participated in a project with Heal the Bay.

Heal the Bay is an environmental group working to restore the Santa Monica Bay. The Heal the Bay program is done at the beach and in coastal areas to ensure the landscape remains a healthy place for both people and wildlife for years to come. During this project, Pioneers protected and cared for the bay by participating in a beach clean up project. They were provided with buckets to collect materials and walked up and down the beach, ensuring that it was clean and beautiful.

This project allowed Pioneers to directly impact their local community and ocean wildlife, and it also set an example for the community of how to fight pollution and care the environment. These Pioneers are helping to keep our oceans healthy for many generations to come.

 When you go to the grocery store or local farmers’ market and survey the vast, colorful array of fresh fruits and vegetables, do you ever stop to wonder where it comes from? How much work is involved in the process of nurturing tiny seeds to harvesting the produce that ends up on your dinner table? How does your food get from farm to table?

The New Vision Pioneers in New Hampshire think about the process often, because they have been volunteering with local schools for several years to teach children how to cultivate and grow vegetables and herbs — starting with seeds and eventually making supper. Each spring for the past five years, these Pioneers, along with volunteers from the Greenhouse Collaborative and the New Horizons soup kitchen, band together to work with several schools in lower-income school districts around Manchester, New Hampshire. Last year, the seed to supper project was brought to life by 275 students, eight teachers, and 26 volunteers, who spent over 520 hours digging in for a great cause.

Each year, the entire growing process is a lesson in patience for volunteers and students — from nurturing tiny seeds, to harvesting full-grown vegetables and, ultimately, to providing healthy meals for those in need. The plants and vegetables aren’t the only things that bloom during the process &mdash the volunteers and students cultivate strong friendships and gain life-long lessons in how to renew and reuse natural resources.

 Pioneers in Los Angeles, California devised a clever project to make use of old t-shirts. Rather than disposing of them, Pioneers repurposed the t-shirts to make dog toys for local animal shelters.

Pioneers began this project by collecting numerous t-shirts from friends, family, and co-workers. They then took the shirts and fashioned them into tug toys to soothe sheltered canines. Being in the shelter is difficult and lonely for homeless dogs. Many arrive stressed and scared, and having a toy to call their own helps them to feel less intimidated. Every bit of comfort they can receive is valuable, and having a toy to chew on to relieve anxiety is very helpful. For these reasons, the West Valley Animal Shelter was incredibly grateful for the tug toys and the joy they bring to the animals. Later, once the dogs have adjusted to life in the shelter, the tug toys helped the dogs get lots of exercise and provided them with hours of play and enjoyment.

Not only did the project keep old t-shirts out of landfills, it enriched the lives of animals who are often scared and alone. This smart use of an everyday item shows that a little bit of creativity can go a long way in making a difference for both the environment and our communities.