Michele Corona

Michele Corona is a former member of Girl Scouts of America Troop 3878 of Suffolk County and a 2018 Gold Award Recipient.

For her Girl Scout Gold Award project, Michele built a Butterfly Reflection Garden at the Brendan House in Riverhead.

To meet this requirement, Michele chose perennial plants for the garden and installed drip hoses so the residents don’t have to water the plants frequently in order to keep the garden going.

Each girl in Michele’s Troop 3878, as well as her mother, created a cement stepping stone with a butterfly made of ceramic pieces. The stones form a pathway that leads to a red bench, which is the focal point of the garden.

In order to create the garden, which took over 90 hours of work, Michele sought donations of supplies and materials from various local nurseries and businesses.

She said she planned the garden around the items that were donated, which included flowers, shrubs, the bench and a birdhouse. But she also wanted it to feature one thing in particular: butterflies.

With the goal of developing a natural, calming environment for patients and visitors at Brendan House to enjoy, she began researching the best ways to foster that atmosphere. Her solution was to choose plantings that were known to attract butterflies.

One of the first flowers she planted were black-eyed Susans, which drew butterflies on the first day.