The Association for Butterflies mini-grant was awarded to Coldwater Community Center. The grant will create or improve habitat for pollinators and provide for nature and community to come together.

Coldwater Community Center
Coldwater, Michigan 49036

The Coldwater Community Center was founded in 2022 as a non-profit dedicated to restoring the historic home that was the site of our town’s first library, later serving as a family funeral parlor. The mission of the Coldwater Community Center includes education, cultural programming and promoting understanding among people. Our values include sustainability, transformation, inclusion and making connections. (The emphasis on transformation is one of the reasons we wish to highlight butterflies in our programs. Being the former site of a prominent funeral parlor in our town, we want to honor all the memories of loved ones that the community associates with the building using butterflies to symbolize “rebirth.”)

We have a board of directors and five administrative committees, including grounds and programming. The building dates back to the 1850s and is adjacent to Coldwater’s Four Corners Park. We have developed a landscape plan for the exterior with the goals of creating a spot for community respite, education and wildlife conservation. The overall garden plan includes many native and non-invasive ornamental plants that create butterfly habitat. Our program and grounds committees are dedicated to promoting butterfly conservation.