Sale of 500,000 eclipse glasses by Oakville students will help endangered butterflies
Published April 8, 2024 at 11:00 am
A group of Oakville students have turned the excitement of the solar eclipse into a project that will help protect an endangered butterfly.
The students, most from Oakville Trafalgar High School, have been selling eclipse glasses to fund the Monarch Butterfly Eclipse Project.
And they have been very successful.
During the recent campaign, they sold 500,000 pairs of the glasses raising almost $400,000, all of which will go to help the butterflies.
The students, Paige Denton (Grade 10), Maggie Lentine (Grade 11), Taylor Denton (Grade 11), Ellen Lentine (Grade 11), and Emilie Leclercq (Grade 11 from the Halton Catholic District School Board), said the project and resulting publicity will help fund programs meant to preserve the habit of the monarch.
They chose the butterfly because its migration route from Mexico to Canada closely resembles the path that today’s (April 8) solar eclipse will take.
“We combined these two things together and developed glasses to view the solar eclipse that are safety certified, which means they are safe to view the eclipse with,” said Lentine.
The glasses were manufactured by an approved company in China and designed with the butterfly in mind. The girls have been using their homes to store and ship the product which successfully sold out a few days ago. The glasses have also been sold in local stores.
The group says 100 per cent of the net profits received from sales will go toward the monarch butterflies initiative.
They say the sale promotes the need to save animals and insects that contribute to the preservation of our ecosystem.
“Monarch butterflies are one of our greatest pollinators. Without pollinators, crops and flowers would not exist,” said Lentine. “The migration path that the monarch butterfly travels is from Mexico through the U.S. and to Canada. Out of a pure coincidence, the total solar eclipse path mirrors the monarch butterfly’s migration. This inspired us to help support the monarchs through our project.”
After the eclipse the group says the money collected will go into a foundation and over the next several years will be directed to appropriate environmental organizations.
The students involved in the project test out their product.