Alice Longworth likes to walk in Pine Island Park and recently noticed more colorful places to step.
“Earlier this month I noticed the stepping stones in the Butterfly Garden had been repainted,” she said and provided photos and a little history.
“Nancy at Pine Island Recreation helped me with the background information, which she got from Jane Hamburger, former principal of the old Pine Island Elementary School and a Warwick Valley Gardener,” said Longworth.
She found that the stepping stones in the Butterfly Garden at Pine Island Park were originally created around 2011 in a joint program between the Warwick Valley Gardeners (WVG) and The Kids Clubhouse Preschool. The WVG installed the garden, and a group of preschoolers’ parents took on the stepping stones as a project—using their kids’ handprints pressed into the wet cement as butterfly shapes. Now the stones have been repainted.