Emma7933
Registered: December 2021
City/Town/Province: Palmyra
Posts: 1
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My name is Emma, and I really love the environment. If I had my way, I’d be outside 24/7 doing my work as an environmental enthusiast, woodworker, chicken keeper, and Boy Scout. I am sad to say this wasn’t the case - my year has been spent battling chronic illnesses (Lyme, Bartonella, Babesiosis) and extensive EMDR to treat medical PTSD, which kept me inside from time to time. Receiving treatment while completing my senior year of high school, pursuing (and achieving!) an Eagle Scout rank, and completing this project has not been easy, but it has made the whole process even more meaningful for me. I have spent much of 2021 in a wheelchair due to Bartonella complications, but have found that I can continue my service to the environment regardless of the obstacles I face. I began my Mason Bee conservation wall in January 2021, and completed it this past November. Many aspects of this project were motivated by my past work with the Wildlife Leadership Academy, with the work I have done as a Boy Scout, and by what I have seen from others for the Nicodemus Wilderness Project.
My Mason Bee Conservation Wall is essentially a four chambered box, each with rows of bamboo tubes for mason bees to lay their eggs in with a carbon fiber poster on the back. It resides in Camp Catherine, which is an outdoor education facility for students attending Milton Hershey School. Milton Hershey, better known as the inventor of Hershey’s Chocolate, was also a philanthropic town founder. In addition to the Hershey Factory and HersheyPark, he also founded the Milton Hershey School (MHS). MHS is a boarding school dedicated to providing exceptional education to children in need, including those without parents, without food, or without a means to afford education elsewhere. Camp Catherine is a small secluded campground surrounded by cornfields (a Pennsylvania classic) and also underwent recent landscaping to establish native flowers on site. These were the perfect preconditions to introduce a habitat for native pollinators, like mason bees. In addition, my educational backboard would fit right in with Milton Hershey’s outdoor education classrooms as well as informing passerbys about the importance of the project on the environment. On the backboard, I included information regarding the fascinating biology of the bees’ surprisingly harmless stingers as well as their range, life cycle, and facts about invasive bamboo grass which composed the bulk of the project. While I was mainly working to protect the bees, I also wanted to do something to raise awareness about this common PA plant that had the power to disrupt entire ecosystems. I arranged a total of twenty workdays - nine of which were for bamboo collection and processing - and incorporated forty-two volunteers, including twenty-three youth. This brought my project to a total of 240 hours.
I am very pleased with the end result of my project, especially considering that in the planning phases I was confined to my wheelchair. I believe it is important to protect Camp Catherine’s area because of its value to the Milton Hershey School and because of Milton Hershey’s value to our community. My project, which is located within the school’s outdoor classroom, will serve to educate these children on the importance of pollinators and native species to our environment while also providing an enormous house for Mason bees already in the area. In addition, my work for this project also helped me achieve my goal of becoming one of the first few female Eagle Scouts in Pennsylvania. This is a huge personal achievement, but it is also an incredibly meaningful one - it is an honor to help make more opportunities for girls with similar passions.
Completing this Mason Bee Wall taught me so much about leadership, delegation, and more about myself as I continue living with my chronic illnesses. I can educate, delegate tasks, and raise awareness for anything I am passionate about regardless of my health status on any given day. This project gave me the empowerment to begin an Instagram account devoted to the science and daily struggles I encounter with my diagnoses (@lyme_life2), as well as push for state legislation to assist those like me who are living with Lyme Disease.
The Mason Bee Conservation Wall project has helped provide educational value and awareness to Milton Hershey School and visitors to Camp Catherine, promoted the growth of pollinator populations in my community, found safe and sustainable uses for invasive bamboo, and helped me to find strength within myself. I cannot wait to see the full impact of this project on the Hershey community, and to see which of my passions drives me toward my next big project.
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