Early last year, Jamie Ferguson asked for the Municipality of Tantramar’s support in submitting an application to become a certified Bee City. Now, Tantramar is New Brunswick’s first Bee Community, but what exactly does that mean?
Bee City Canada is an initiative of Pollinator Partnership Canada, an organization working to create an ecologically sustainable world for both people and pollinators. Its Bee City Canada program was created in order to “recognize and support municipalities, Indigenous communities, campuses and schools that are taking action to protect and promote pollinators.”
In action, this means creating and maintaining pollinator habitats, working to educate the community about pollinators, and participating in Pollinator Week celebrations. Locally, much of this work has already been happening, and becoming a certified Bee Community serves as a way to recognize this work and help provide momentum to continue these efforts.
The municipality has committed to planting more native perennials instead of annuals in garden beds, removing invasive species throughout the Waterfowl Park, and collaborating with Open Sky Co-op as well as the Sackville Community Garden (SCG), who provide volunteer support and grow a majority of the plants that are used for planting throughout downtown Sackville.
In mid-June, representatives from Tantramar’s Active Living and Culture department, Open Sky, and the SCG took to Main Street to begin the next phase of their plan, which includes planting and maintaining flower beds outside of the post office and Sackville United Church.
We spoke with George Chappell, who has been with Open Sky for 11 years. For him, Open Sky represents the Tantramar community’s eagerness to welcome and support its members.
“We just want to make sure people out in the community [know] that Open Sky is there… It means a lot to me to be part of a great community.”
When asked about why he came to help, Chappell said the United Church was hosting a lunch barbecue for the volunteers and that he’s “a part of it, no matter what.”
Open Sky is well integrated with the community, frequently collaborating with other organizations such as United Way Greater Moncton & South Eastern NB, Tantramar Active Living and Culture, the SCG, and the United Church.
We also had the chance to speak with board member Sarah Poirier, who outlined some of Open Sky’s missions and goals.
“We work with neurodivergent adults, so folks who are 18 and older who have autism or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder . . . In New Brunswick, you have an EA all through school, and then when you graduate Grade 12, you’re out the door of the school, and have a nice a nice life and good luck to you. But Open Sky is a place where we teach all sorts of independent living skills and employment readiness skills,” she said.
“Open Sky is a farm, so outside of gardening season, we have coffee hour on Wednesday mornings at the United Church. And last year, we celebrated the end of coffee hour for the season by planting the Bridge Street beds. And so our plan was to do it this year, same thing, first week of June . . . but we couldn’t get the beds prepped in time, so that’s why we’re doing it today instead. And then the beds here by the post office, it’s a Community Garden and Open Sky partnership.”
Poirier was also able to reflect on how last year’s planting informs how they move forward with future plantings.
“We’re going to be planting these beds with a year under our belts from the Bridge Street beds, we know now what needs to be tough. To make it look nice for the summer, we’ve got some annuals to go in from the Open Sky Greenhouse. [Sam] Bliss, who is manager of our Open Sky Greenhouse, was contacted by the Community Garden in early March to source and grow the annuals and perennials that we are putting in today. So the perennials come from Cornhill Nursery, in Cornhill, New Brunswick, and Sam has grown all of the annuals himself.”
Looking to the future, Poirier hopes to continue doing bed plantings throughout Sackville,
“We’re always on the lookout for beds to plant, that’s kind of what we do at Open Sky. The next step in our mission is care of the beds. Because it’s one thing to put them in, but then if they’re grown over with weeds in two weeks, what was the point of this beautiful planting, right? So the next step is to work with the town to look after these beautiful beds that we’ve planted.”
