By: Shane Bagot, Follow South Jersey Intern
NATIONAL PARK, NJ — The Glocester County Certified Gardener Program is excited to be putting together another Butterfly Festival at the Red Bank Battlefield. This festival will be held on July 11, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The event is to raise awareness for pollinators. It’s to educate people about the importance of pollinators and how they can help attract them into their own yards.
Program Coordinator for the Gloucester County Certified Gardeners, Mary Cummings, has been a part of the team for 27 years. Cummings recalls when they first received the butterfly house at the Red Bank Battlefield. It was then that they decided to use the festival as a way to promote the house and its pollinators.
They have now been doing the festival for the last eight years. From the start, the festival was always more popular than expected. Since then, it has grown more and more with new activities.
They have focused on adding more educational and kids programs. Such as a bug show, a butterfly parade, and craft games. The idea has been to turn it more into a family event.
More so than making it a family event. The focal point, being the children, is a lot more important. Cummings wants to teach the children so they can eventually teach everyone around them about the significance of it all.
“If we can educate the kids, the kids can kind of educate and push the parents to say, ‘Why can’t we plant some flowers for the butterflies,’ so they kind of promote our message. We’re always surprised at how knowledgeable these kids are about butterflies, about bees, and about the importance of them,” said Cummings.
This year’s event is headlined by the addition of the old-fashioned family picnic and vintage baseball game as a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the country. To open the event, they will introduce their first-ever butterfly release. They will be releasing 100 butterflies, one for each family.
The event will have a schedule to follow. Including fun facts, bee talk, and the ending parade. There will also be events to attend if attendees decide to veer off the schedule. Some are the butterfly house tour, family outdoor games, community art show, and live music.
For Cummings and the team, it is a year-round process to set it up. This involves seeking out new speakers and events to add. There are a lot of brainstorming meetings to think of new ideas on how to make the event better, and attendees want more.
They put so much work into it because of how essential the awareness is from this kind of event. A lot of the information gained is put back into the work they are trying to promote. They sell pollinator plants, which people will buy and eventually make their own little pollinator garden. There is also the pollinator pit stop program, which allows people to create a little butterfly habitat in their yard.
While it may be a lot to handle at times, they welcome the growth and possibility for more regarding the festival.
“It’s always great, and I think we’ve gotten a lot more publicity than we have in the past for the event,” said Cummings. “The more people we can reach and the more people we can educate, the better off our environment and the world of pollinators will be helped.”
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