Photo above: The City of Smyrna City Council unanimously voted on August 3, 2026, to become a Bee City USA. From left to right: Chris Knight (At-Large, KSB Board); Casey Chaviano (At-Large, KSB Board); Diane Overton (Mayor’s Appointee, KSB Board); Shannon Balestrini (At-Large, KSB Board); Mayor Derek Norton; Environmental Services Director and KSB Executive Director Julie Barwig; Maggie McGarity (Ward 5, KSB Board); Liv Wise (At-large, KSB Board)
Keep Smyrna Beautiful distributed the following announcement:
The City of Smyrna City Council unanimously voted on August 3, 2026, to become a Bee City USA®, joining many other cities and campuses across the country united in improving their landscapes for pollinators. This designation is the culmination of months of effort by Keep Smyrna Beautiful (KSB) to accomplish this affiliation.
Bee City USA is an initiative of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, with offices across the country. Bee City USA’s mission is to galvanize communities to sustain pollinators by providing them with healthy habitat, rich in a variety of native plants and free of insecticides. Pollinators like bumble bees, sweat bees, mason bees, honey bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, hummingbirds, and many others are responsible for the reproduction of almost ninety percent of the world’s flowering plant species and one in every three bites of food we consume.
“This proclamation represents an important step in our shared commitment to protecting the pollinators that are essential to our community,” said Casey Chaviano, at-large KSB board member. “Georgia is home to more than 500 species of native bees, many of which are facing increasing threats from habitat loss, pesticide use, introduced diseases, and changing climate conditions. These pollinators delight home gardeners, are an important component of our agricultural systems, and are critical to the health of our local ecosystems. Thank you to the mayor and city council for your support of Keep Smyrna Beautiful and our native bees. Creating healthy spaces for wildlife to flourish is also the work of creating thriving communities for everyone in Smyrna.”
“The program aspires to make people more PC—pollinator conscious, that is,” said Scott Hoffman Black, Xerces’ executive director. “If lots of individuals and communities begin planting native, pesticide-free flowering trees, shrubs and perennials, it will create large-scale change for many, many species of pollinators.”
“How each city completes the steps to conserve pollinators is up to them,” said Bee City USA Coordinator Laura Rost. “To maintain their affiliation, each affiliate is expected to report on their achievements and celebrate being a Bee City USA affiliate every year.”
Each affiliate should hold public awareness activities; publicly acknowledge the commitment to the program through a standing committee, signage and web links; and prepare an annual report on habitat enhancement activities. Bee City USA especially encourages school gardens and educational programs for children.
The City of Smyrna has designated Keep Smyrna Beautiful the facilitating committee for Smyrna’s efforts to engage the community in promoting pollinator conservation. Already, KSB volunteers have installed two Pollinator Pocket gardens in Smyrna with plans to install one in every ward of the city. KSB provides education and resources online, in schools, and at the gardens to inspire Smyrna residents to join the fight to protect pollinators. Additionally, KSB Executive Director Julie Barwig recently became certified as a Pollinator Steward by the Pollinator Partnership.
For more information about Smyrna’s Bee City USA program, contact Julie Barwig at jbarwig@smyrnaga.gov.
For more information about Bee City USA, visit https://www.beecityusa.org/
For more information about the Xerces Society, visit https://xerces.org/
For information about four simple ways to help pollinators, visit https://xerces.org/bringbackthepollinators/
About Keep Smyrna Beautiful
Keep Smyrna Beautiful’s mission is to inspire our community to be clean, green, and beautiful. Our vision is a community where every person is a responsible steward of the environment. KSB is a 501(c)3 nonprofit and a local affiliate of both Keep America Beautiful and the Keep Georgia Beautiful Foundation. To learn more about our work in the community, visit keepsmyrnabeautiful.com. Learn more about the Pollinator Pocket initiative at https://keepsmyrnabeautiful.com/pollinator-pockets/