Journey North Symbolic Monarch Butterfly Migration

This year's deadline has passed. Please join is in 2007!
It is too late to send symbolic monarchs to Mexico this year. Watch for next year's postmark deadline in October, 2007.

Over 65,000 paper butterflies were made in the fall of 2006 by children in the United States and Canada, and sent to the children who live beside the monarch sanctuaries in Mexico. These Symbolic Monarch ambassadors will come back next spring and "migrate" back to classrooms when the actual monarchs begin their journey north.

The butterflies' fall flight is timed to correspond with the real monarchs' journey south. The paper butterflies arrive in Mexico around the time of the Dia de los Muertos (November 2), just as the real monarchs do. According to Mexican legend, these returning butterflies are thought to carry the ancestors' souls and play a role in the Dia de los Muertos celebrations.

Mexican students from the sanctuary region greet the butterflies and watch over them during the winter months. At the same time in the mountains nearby, the entire eastern population of North American monarch butterflies rests in Mexico for the winter.

In March, when the real and symbolic butterflies return it's as if the students have traveled with them. The concept of a global community is not an abstraction but an everyday experience. United by a fragile butterfly, the children of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada have established a cycle of friendship and stewardship.