The Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat Kit Program: 2025 in Review

The Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat Kit Program: 2025 in Review deborah.seiler Thu, 05/14/2026 - 00:00 4 minute estimated read time One of the best ways to help declining pollinators and other wildlife is to restore safe habitat for them. Through the Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat Kit Program , we provide plants and resources to people with the interest, experience, and land to make it happen. We offer free, carefully selected, native, and regionally appropriate plant material directly to our partners for shovel-ready projects. In 2025 alone, we distributed over 100,000 free plants to 525 qualifying projects across the United States. This included over 10,000 milkweeds planted in Priority 1 Regions , helping to support western monarch populations. Since its origin in 2019, the Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat Kit Program has planted over 614,000 native plants across 2,500 projects! Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat Kit Participants at the Portland Community College – Rock Creek. (Photo: Jade Menchaca) Highlights from California, Our Longest-Running Habitat Kit Program One of our favorite things about the California Monarch and Pollinator Habitat Kit Program is the long-term connections we make with our kit partners. We’ve supported over 800 projects since this program launched in 2019, which includes nearly 250 returning partners. These are people who return to the program multiple years to keep building on their progress. The amazing habitat that they have created all over the state is really having an impact on pollinators and communities. One such partner is Bill Milligan, the caretaker of Mygrant Ranch in Contra Costa County. Bill has participated in the California Monarch and Pollinator Habitat Kit Program program nearly every year since 2020, and has created acres of stunning habitat across the ranch homestead as a result. Mygrant Ranch is a working cattle ranch that includes extensive vegetable production, and Bill’s pollinator habitat work at the ranch is a great example of how to incorporate habitat into working lands. His plantings include pollinator gardens, hedgerows, riparian restoration, and wildflower meadows, and his background in landscape design is evident in the stunning aesthetics of all of his projects. Most importantly, Bill’s work has significantly boosted populations of pollinators and other beneficial insects across the ranch. In his own words, “We have a whole universe of pollinators showing up on our hedgerow—I’ve counted at least 4 different species of bumble bees alone! And we used to have a terrible problem with cucumber beetles in our vegetable gardens. Now that we have all of this habitat at the ranch, they have virtually disappeared.” Xerces Society biologist Kelly Gill loads plants for the Mid-Atlantic Pollinator Habitat Kit Program distribution day. (Photo: Xerces Society / Raven Larcom) Kathy Kleinsteiber is another one of our long-term habitat kit recipients, having participated in our habitat kit program for the past three years. She is a native plant enthusiast and gardener who is also passionate about pollinators. With the help of Xerces Society habitat kits, Kathy has been working tirelessly to create pollinator gardens in city parks throughout San Jose. She recruits volunteers who live near each park to adopt the gardens, and she teaches them about how to care for California native plants. Her project has been so successful that the city of San Jose decided to take her idea city-wide! They hired a volunteer coordinator to help more people plant pollinator gardens across the city using Xerces Society habitat kits. Kathy also volunteers to help us sort plants into kits during our kit pick-up events in San Jose. Last summer, Kathy also collected California milkweed ( Asclepias californica ) seed from her habitat kit plantings, so that we could use the seed to grow milkweed for our 2026 habitat kits! One of our favorite things about the Xerces Society Habitat Kit Program is that it allows us to support the wonderful work that people like Kathy are doing all around the state to support pollinators. We are currently offering habitat kits in several regions of the United States to qualifying partners. Please visit our Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat Kit Program webpage to learn more and submit a proposal. Volunteers plant a Xerces Society Pollinator Habitat Kit in one of San Jose Parks's pollinator gardens. (Photo: Kathy Kleinsteiber) Authors Angela Laws Endangered Species Conservation Biologist Climate Change Lead Based in Sacramento, California, Angela is working on habitat restoration for pollinators and monarch butterflies in the Central Valley. Her role at the Xerces Society also involves incorporating climate resiliency into pollinator restoration projects. Angela has over 15 years of experience studying arthropods in grassland habitats, including studies of how climate change can affect species interactions. She received a master's of science in ecology from Utah State University, and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Notre Dame. Jessa Kay Cruz Senior Pollinator Conservation Specialist California and the Intermountain West Jessa is the Senior Pollinator Conservation Specialist for The Xerces Society in California, and a partner biologist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. She manages and coordinates many aspects of the pollinator program in California and throughout the western United States. Since joining Xerces in 2008, she has worked in agricultural and natural lands throughout the western U.S. to create habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects, and to promote practices that support them. Raven Larcom Pollinator Conservation Specialist & Administrator As the pollinator conservation specialist and administrator, Raven promotes the conservation of pollinators through direct technical support, outreach, and events in the Mid-Atlantic region. She also supports the pollinator team through program tracking, reporting, publication preparation, communications, event coordination, responding to public inquiries, and more.