Connecting the work of pollinators, especially bees, to our lives on earth. How we have benefited from the bees co-evolution with plants and how we can support that relationship.

Bonnie Borucki (she/her)

My fascination with bees began by inviting a beekeeper’s hives into my backyard around 2012. I also noticed the many types of bees thriving so abundantly in a community garden where I was a member. An increased awareness of a bee die-off, noticed first in honeybees, was also happening at this time.
In order to protect the Ashby Community Garden, some members, including myself, formed the non-profit, We Bee Gardeners, which functioned as a 501c3 for 10 years, before disbanding in 2024. During this time, we learned about local Native Bees and their tremendous connection to our local habitat.
In 2022 the Sogorea Te Land Trust purchased the garden properties through the benevolence of an anonymous donor, and renamed it “Pinnantak”, which in the Ohlone Chenchenyo language, translates as “Place of the Bee.” From there I became involved in a wider community education and action effort to make the City of Berkeley an official Bee City USA. That effort is still in progress, and Transition Berkeley, a 501c3 which I co-direct, has been planting native plant pollinator gardens in public locations to provide a pollinator corridor where native bees and other pollinators thrive.

We meet in person at 1924 Cedar Street and on Zoom for Worship Services on Sundays at 10:30 AM. If you’d like to attend via Zoom, please email worshiponline@bfuu.org for the meeting ID and link. You can also stream the service live and catch the replay on BFUU’s Youtube channel.