Anita Tanzola recounts the commission’s 2025 initiatives at a March 16 township committee meeting.
A collection of 575 pairs of shoes and the cleanup of a school butterfly garden were among last year’s initiatives by the Harrison Township Environmental Commission highlighted during a March 16 committee meeting.
According to commission chair Anita Tanzola, the annual shoe drive took place from December of 2024 to January of 2025, and its collection was donated to two Gloucester County charities. April 2025 saw the commission team with Harrison Township Elementary School to tidy what the school calls the Reimagination Garden.
“They have a beautiful butterfly garden in the courtyard that’s in the center of the school there,” said Tanzola. “We go every year and help the school. They have the families of the children that attend the school all come out on a Saturday morning.
“It’s a really big effort and we pull up weeds and cut back perennial branches from last year’s plants, and we just clean up the whole garden.”
Commission members talked to students and their families about the importance of native plants and how pollinators can help support native wildlife, and sponsored a table at Harrison Township Day in June to educate the public about other local environmental issues.
At the meeting, Tanzola also spotlighted the garden next to the Fishmonger House on Main Street, which is maintained by the commission with help from the Gloucester County Certified Gardeners Program.
“It’s all native plants and they’re plants that are very drought resistant,” she explained. “We’ve been working on that over the last couple of years.”
Also presented at the meeting was the rendering of a mural that will be placed on a wall at the garden and dedicated to the late Irene Hill Smith, a Black resident of Mullica Hill who spent much of her life as a civil rights advocate. She was also a former president of the Gloucester County NAACP.
Work on the mural is expected to be done by spring.
“We’re waiting for good weather to do some repairs on the wall,” Tanzola said, “and then we’re going to power wash the wall, prime paint it and go for it as soon as we have good weather.”
The next township committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 6, at 7 p.m.
