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Grand Valley Lions Club hosts annual Memorial Butterfly Release program

July 2, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Joshua Drakes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Over the weekend on June 27, the Grand Valley Lions Club hosted a memorial butterfly release, offering local residents a symbolic way to remember loved ones while supporting a local infrastructure project.

Held at the Grand Valley Lions Club, the event saw 50 painted lady (Vanessa cardui) butterflies sold to participants, who then took them to meaningful locations for a personal release. Each of the 50 butterflies sold during the fundraiser cost $25.

Lions Club President Randy McClelland said that the funds raised through the program will be spent on a new healthcare facility near Fergus, serving the Grand Valley community.

“We’re supporting a new project that we’re taking on with a number of other Lions Clubs, most of them are in Wellington County,” he said. “We’re raising funds for a new hospice, and it is going to be located up near the new hospital in Fergus.”

The butterfly release has been organized on and off for about six years, emerging around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Inspired by similar memorial initiatives seen elsewhere, the project was adopted in Grand Valley as a gentle and visually striking way for people to honour family members and friends who have died.

Attendance has remained steady, with about 50 butterflies sold each year the event has run.

This year’s release continued that tradition, giving participants a quiet, reflective experience as they marked personal losses in their own spaces. Organizers note that the event serves both as a memorial and a fundraiser, with the flexibility to support different causes over time. The hospice will be just one initiative the butterflies will help support.

Those who purchased the butterflies didn’t have to release them immediately, and could choose to take them to a special spot, or back home.

“Once you pick them up, you can do whatever you want with them,” McClelland said. “I took them home, I had three of them, I lost three loved ones this year, and we sat in our backyard and released them.”

Within the Lions Club, the project is led as a club-wide effort, with particular coordination by Lions members Lori Benham-Culp and Kathy Nussey, who have been identified by McClelland as key organizers behind the memorial butterfly initiative.

The club hopes to build on this year’s participation and see even more community involvement in future releases.

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