Sustainability Club: Bringing Beauty and Butterflies to the COM Campus

By Gloria Hubbell Corena

Editor-in-Chief

Adjacent to the Student Center Building is a modest garden that is rooted in a mighty goal. This garden comes courtesy of the Sustainability Club, whose mission is to create and restore habitats for the beautiful and endangered monarch butterflies. The club is not meeting-based, opting instead to have members volunteer for events that support the garden’s restoration efforts. The Sustainability Club is the oldest club at College of Marin, having been around for over twenty years. For decades, the club’s original goal had been solely sustainability, yet things began to change in 2023. In the Spring of that year, their focus shifted to the organic butterfly garden as a natural habitat for the monarch butterflies. By fall, their current president created their Instagram account in hopes of spreading their message. They had successfully breathed new life into the club after the difficulties of the COVID-19 restrictions. The club currently has six active members plus an additional 100 members on its email list that are alerted to upcoming events. In 2025, their most successful events were a bake sale in October and a garden cleaning in November. The profits of which were placed in a slowly growing nest egg allocated to purchase science equipment for students in Colombia. One day, the club hopes to send COM students to Colombia to experience firsthand how their contributions are making a difference. The club’s more immediate goals, according to club president Allie Bertolina, include expanding the garden and greenhouse, harvesting crops, promoting organic eating, and increasing accessibility to science equipment and education. These goals culminate in their desire to spread sustainability to other countries. The club understands it has a community mission, yet acknowledges our ecosystem expands far beyond Marin.

 “We are a small club, we are a small school, but we want to make the biggest impact,” Bertolina shared. Colombian-born Professor Agudelo-Silva, Ph.D, a hands-on faculty sponsor for the club, was the spark that ignited the passion to help Colombian students gain access to science equipment. President Bertolina shared how their desire grew when they learned of the great struggles these students face. Such as having to share a single petri dish among a class of thirty students. “So it became important to the club, and to me, to provide access to science, tools, and education,” Bertolina beamed. Her excitement for the club and its efforts is evident in the way she shares the club’s goals with great enthusiasm. Explaining that the milkweed the club planted is the main diet for the butterflies. Though the spring weather has brought rain, the monarchs are beginning to return to the garden. The caterpillars that weeks ago were hungrily eating away at the milkweed have now incarnated into their next life here on the COM campus. Come the warmer months, other plants such as tomatoes and pumpkins will be moved to the garden. The expansion of the garden is still underway, including the transfer of milkweed, weeding out the invasive plants, tending to the Yarrow and California Aster, and planting more diverse plants and flowers. Bertolina wishes to raise awareness for future events and invites anyone interested to join the club and support sustainability. Most recently, the club hand-packaged hundreds of seeds and gave them out during the Founders Day event, drawing a large and eager crowd. Events are posted on their Instagram account @com.sustainability. The club invites you to dm them to be added to the email list as a club member. The club would like you to keep an eye out for events such as the one on Earth Day, April 22nd. The club will be collaborating with MESA, providing food, arts & crafts, and tools for the event, which will be helping to weed the garden. It will be held during community hour, 12:40-1:30 PM, and all are invited. “The club has persisted, and it will continue when we’re gone, because the plants will still be here.” Bertolina wisely pondered the club’s longevity and its goals for the future. Indeed, their actions will last longer than just a semester.

A future monarch butterfly, in its caterpillar state, is busy eating milkweed.

photographs by Gloria Hubbell Corena Feb, 2026