SOUTH SHORE — The 2019 Monarch Festival, which aims to draw connections between the butterflies’ travels and human experiences, will be held Saturday at the South Shore Cultural Center.
The event runs 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Members of various minority communities will discuss native peoples and land ownership, Latinx migration and the Great Migration.
But all are welcome to the free festival since “everyone has a story of migration,” said Princess Harris, sustainable food and land use coordinator for Faith in Place.
A podcast on migration will also be recorded in the cultural center’s Margaret Burroughs Room. Attendees are invited to visit the recording booth to share their personal stories.
“It can be a big story, like you came from a country for better opportunities, or it could be you came from another neighborhood,” Harris said. “We’re bringing awareness to people’s personal stories and the story of the monarch.”
Elsewhere at the festival, there will be a photo booth, a showing of the documentary “Flight of the Butterflies” and a craft station to make monarch mobiles.
The cultural center is a fitting location for the event, as its nature sanctuary is home to monarch-friendly plants, Harris said.
Milkweed — the only plant monarch caterpillars will eat — purple coneflowers and black-eyed Susans all grow in the sanctuary, among others.
Saturday’s monarch festival, run through Faith in Place’s Migration and Me program, will be the second edition. The first was held at Garfield Park in 2017.
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