Bee City USA Asheville Becomes Fiscal Agent of Asheville GreenWorks
Phyllis Styles (far right) leads a Pollinator Safari for the 2022 Pollination Celebration!
After seven years of managing Asheville’s Bee City USA program at GreenWorks,
the group has grown so much that the Asheville affiliate of the national Bee City USA
program is now becoming its own organization! To facilitate the shift, GreenWorks will
act as the fiscal agent for Bee City Asheville, providing a clearinghouse for
donations until they have their own fiscal management systems in place. While
the Bee City USA program gets fully established as an independent organization,
GreenWorks will continue to share equipment when needed and help with raising
awareness for Bee City events.
A little history. We are proud that the national Bee City USA program was birthed right here in
Asheville in 2012. We assisted founder Phyllis Stiles in those early years. Just like
Asheville’s program, each local Bee City USA affiliate commits to maintaining a
standing committee to lead its pollinator conservation efforts, enhancing
pollinator habitat on public and private land, spreading awareness of pollinator
decline and how each of us can help, and filing a report to renew its certification
with the national program each year. Sometimes that committee is based in City
government, and sometimes that committee is based in a local nonprofit.
Asheville’s program was originally based in the City’s Tree Commission but, in
2017, found an even better home with us at GreenWorks.
Common Eastern Bumble Bee
In 2018, the national Bee City USA program merged with the Xerces Society for
Invertebrate Conservation. It has grown to have 400 affiliates in 47 states today,
all committed to sustaining biodiversity by galvanizing communities to increase
the abundance of native plants, provide nest sites for pollinators, and reduce the
use of pesticides.
Asheville GreenWorks is happy to have supported Bee City USA almost from its
inception and we hope our supporters will support the new Bee City USA-
Asheville organization! You can find Bee City events, native plant resources, and pollinator habitat
application at beecityasheville.org. On their website you can also sign up for their
email list at the bottom of every page and sign up to “pollenteer” at