The K-8 campus of Allendale Public Schools became significantly more wildlife-friendly Saturday when the community gathered to plant a butterfly garden, install bird feeders and construct bat houses as part of the second annual Allendale Community Field Day.

About 100 people came to the event, including 40 children, seven Allendale schoolteachers and seven instructors from Grand Valley State University.

“We had more than twice as many people participate as last year,” said Peter Riemersma, a professor of geology at GVSU. Riemersma co-coordinated the event with Keith Piccard, a science teacher at Allendale Middle School.

“We’re hoping to get more people involved,” Riemersma said. “Kind of a board of people together so it’s not just Keith and I doing all the planning and work and everything.”

The theme of this year’s field day was “Things that Fly,” and to help successfully attract flying wildlife to the campus, the two teachers connected with GVSU faculty and students, as well as a local Boy Scout troop and other community members.

Faculty and students from the GVSU engineering department designed bird feeders made of Plexiglas so that Allendale students could observe and learn about the various birds the feeders hope to attract.

Amy Russell, assistant professor of biology at GVSU, was the event’s bat expert, and GVSU alumna Holli Ward of Michigan Butterflies Inc. acted as the butterfly expert. GVSU student Kayla Traina also designed promotional flyers for the event.

Local Boy Scout Troop 39 helped assemble the bat houses, and individuals from Vruggink Family Garden helped germinate the plants for the butterfly garden.

“Everything got done,” Piccard said. “We got all the bat houses constructed and all 12 birdfeeders up. We were expecting only one (birdfeeder) design, but they came with two.”

That wasn’t all that was done to naturalize the campus, however.

“We (also) had people planting oak trees along the outskirts of the Allendale public campus,” Riemersma said. “By the end of the day they planted 140 oak trees.”

“It was fantastic,” Piccard said. “We had a very, very good turn out.”

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