Cultivating Pollinators — and a Career

Jhaneil Ramirez has always enjoyed gardening. Now 17 and a junior at Springfield Honors Academy, Jhaneil traveled to the Ignite by 4-H summit in Washington D.C. in 2025. This national leadership trip, funded in part by the Massachusetts 4-H Foundation, is an annual summit where young people initiate a “lead to change” project to bring back to their communities. The experience spurred him on to research and design pollinator gardens for sites in Massachusetts.

Lauren Dubois,  4-H Urban Educator based in Springfield, explains that Jhaneil was selected to attend Ignite by 4-H and work on the pollinator project because he had already spent time working with Gardening the Community, a nonprofit that trains young people to grow fruits and vegetables. “The reason we chose him [for Ignite] is this relationship,” she said.

Jhaneil stood out long before he attended Ignite by 4-H. A participant in the 4-H STEAM (Science/Technology/Engineering/Arts/Math) school and community partnership program for the past five years, Jhaneil decided to join when he saw a flyer at his school. He completed the session and then went on to attend Explore UMass, a two-day Massachusetts 4-H program that enables teens to try out STEM careers and sample college life.

Jhaneil now serves 4-H STEAM as a youth leader. He assists the 4-H Program Assistant in delivering hands-on science activities to middle schoolers in the Holyoke/Springfield area and receives a small stipend. He continued developing his skills as a STEM Ambassador, teaching youth at a 4-H summer program. “For six weeks, I was out teaching kids all about pollinators and agriculture and livestock, and all these things I’m passionate about,” said Jhaneil in a video produced by the National 4-H Council.

Jhaneil’s trip to Ignite by 4-H kicked off the pollinator project. Once home, he began to perform the research necessary to create pollinator gardens. He made a list of 91 species of bugs, including bees, butterflies, and other pollinators that would be protected by future gardens. “I did research on bugs, especially bugs native to Massachusetts,” he explained. “Populations that live in only one place are the most important to preserve.”

Formulating a garden for 91 species challenged Jhaneil. For this, he called on Blake Dinius, an Entomologist Extension Educator for Plymouth County, who provided fact checking and reviewed statistics. “Jhaneil had a lot of passion and ambition with this project,” said Dinius. “I really let him take the reins on this. I wanted it to be his project.”

The Ashland Innovation 4-H Club contributed much-needed technological assistance and visibility to the pollinator project. While the club typically focuses on robotics and coding, its members relished the chance to work on something new. “We got to show off our skills in a different way,” said 4-H’er Hitesh Vuppala.

The Ashland Innovation 4-H Club is contributing to the project by promoting it via social media and building a website, whatsbuzzinginma.org. When complete, the website will include “details about the Ignite trip, pollinator species, and how citizens can help pollinators to flourish,” said Sid Monagari, a member of the Ashland Innovation 4-H Club.

Ashland Innovation and Jhaneil delivered a Visual Presentation about the pollinators at both The Big E (Eastern States Exposition) and 4-H STEM Day, growing its audience. Two 4-H’ers from Ashland Innovation worked as youth leaders at Explore UMass 2025 in the Pollinator track. “We helped by catching the pollinators and showing the kids where they came from,” said 4-H’er Rupinika Golla. Club members will help to construct the garden beds.

Jhaneil has decided to place the garden beds at Liberty Hill Townhouses in Springfield and the Charles River Campus of UMass Amherst (where Massachusetts 4-H has an office). This spring, the gardens will come to life.

Jhaneil has big plans for the future. “I’d like to be an educator one day,” he said. “That has been one of my big dreams. I’d like to be a professor, teach complicated things.”

He is certainly well on his way!