LAKE COMO – The Lake Como Environmental Commission, alongside the borough mayor and council, celebrated the Young-Luterzo Butterfly Garden, located at North Boulevard and Main Street on the lakefront, at a bench-and-sign dedication ceremony this past weekend.
The butterfly garden is dedicated to the Young family, who did the initial groundwork to get the butterfly garden in place, as well as the Luterzo family, who continue to keep it in pristine condition.
James Marturano of MRC Recreation donated a butterfly-design metal bench to Lake Como for passersby to sit down and enjoy the beauty of the plantings and wildlife around the garden.
Debbie Hilliard, chairperson of the Lake Como Environmental Commission, led the dedication ceremony.
“The butterfly garden is an important addition to Lake Como, not only for its environmental benefits, but also because it adds a beautiful spot to the lake, as you can see,” Hilliard said. “The butterfly garden offers numerous benefits, including attracting beautiful pollinators, supporting local ecosystems and providing educational opportunities. As someone who walks her dog by here every single day, sometimes twice a day, I can tell you there’s a lot of foot traffic that goes by here and there’s a lot of people that take a look at what we have.
“I’m thankful to the people who originally came up with this idea, and spearheaded the project to the people that have kept this going for years now. They kept it at its current level of beauty. Today, we are here to honor both families who have been instrumental to the butterfly garden,” she said.
Hilliard thanked the mayor and council, the Lake Como Department of Public Works, administrative office staff, members of the environmental commission and all volunteers who have put hours of time into creating the garden, and working to keep it beautiful for all visitors to enjoy.
John Buckley, member of the Lake Como Environmental Commission, spoke on the garden and the work it took to get there, including the Young and Luterzo families’ dedication.
“I just want to say thank you to Scott Young, his wife, Karen; Sue and Mike Luterzo,” Buckley said. “Scott Young was the vice chairman of the environmental commission. Together with his wife, Karen, they organized the volunteer program with Jon Gibbons to help out with environmental projects in our town. The husband-and-wife team designed the butterfly garden with Jon Gibbons, and Scott and Karen began the planning for the lakefront development also. Scott was a tireless, enthusiastic person, who saw the vision of what Lake Como has become and with his contributions. You see all the fluctuations of the work here today. You see the lake, the lakefront, the path to the lake, the natural shoreline, the aerators, and the lake is in great shape. It’s getting beautiful use, and it brings the community together, like everybody here today.”
Karen Zielinski-Young, wife of Scott Young, former chairman of the environmental commission, spoke on her and her husband’s efforts to create the butterfly garden, beginning in 2014 by removing all invasive species of plants in the garden area and inviting many volunteers to come help on the job. Young says that by 2015, the poison ivy and invasive species had been removed, and they hit the ground running with the idea of a butterfly garden.
“By 2017, this garden was all done and it was beautiful,” Young said. “We had all of the labels on the plants, which plants were pollinators, since the butterfly has four cycles of life. We had to have plants where they could lay their eggs, plants where they could eat nectar and then in the fall, we had asters so that they had something to eat as well, before they travel to Mexico.”
Young said she and her husband, Scott, moved out of Lake Como in 2017 and the Luterzo family took over the care of the garden, before the Youngs moved back after Scott was diagnosed with ALS last year.
“We were able to come back here and sit on the bench, and we were amazed,” Young said.
Susan Luterzo spoke about her and her husband Mike’s efforts to work on the garden and keep up with it in recent years, including weeding the area continuously and even using chainsaws to clear out entire areas around the butterfly garden, to help the garden reach its current clean state.
“I can tell you, we both had our share of poison ivy over the years,” Luterzo said. “With that chainsaw, we came and cleaned all of this out, and so you can sit on this bench and enjoy the beautiful view…We slowly but surely are now gardening all of these, and hopefully the mulch will be down soon to help vacate the weeds. We are honored to be here today, and thank you all for this honor.”
Mayor Kevin Higgins spoke about the volunteers who have helped the garden grow from the start and to this day.
“This really came to fruition in 2017,” the mayor said. “It wasn’t until 2024 that the municipality really caught up and gave an investment into this area. The lakefront just looks amazing. It’s an amazing little community that I can walk down the lake and realize when the Luterzos are on vacation, because there’s weeds popping up among the flowers. I just want to thank everybody for their dedication. This is not just the dedication to the Young and Luterzo families. This is more of a monument to our volunteers of Lake Como. In such a small town, we really survive on the backs of our volunteers. Just a story of this butterfly garden coming together through volunteerism, and then having the community come behind it and investing into the long path along the lake is really a testament and a story to keep following as we go through the years here.”
The mayor also highlighted, as many speakers did, Jon Gibbons, former chairperson of the environmental commission and Debbie Hilliard, current chairperson, for their involvement in the butterfly garden and the overall natural environment of Lake Como.
Councilman and environmental commission liaison Peter Ventrice thanked borough administrator Andrew Huisman for his efforts in the garden, along with Martorano for the bench donation.
Huisman spoke to The Coast Star on the Luterzos and their dedication over recent years to keep up with the garden.
“Sue and Mike Luterzo are always out here,” Huisman said. “They stuck it out, and have been working on it ever since. I’ve been in the government for 30 years, and I don’t think I’ve had volunteers that work as hard as they do. They are dedicated, and it’s great for the town.”
The ceremony stood as a great honor to those who have donated their time and hard work to beautify the little corner in town, where people of all ages can explore for years to come.
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