Today, the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary (CVH Animal Sanctuary) announced it will partner with the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) to symbolically rename the Monarch Butterfly the ‘Catherine Butterfly,’ for one day, June 8, 2024, in honor of Catherine Violet Hubbard, one of the children who lost their lives at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. June 8 marks what would have been Catherine’s 18th birthday.
“It’s hard to believe Catherine would have been 18 this year,” said Jenny Hubbard, president of the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary and Catherine’s mother. “Catherine’s unwavering empathy and kindness—even for the smallest of creatures—continues to inspire us all. We’re thankful to the North American Butterfly Association for helping us remember Catherine in this way. As we celebrate Catherine, we hope that the renaming of the Monarch butterfly on her birthday can bring us all together and help spread Catherine’s message of kindness.”
The CVH Animal Sanctuary was created to commemorate and honor Catherine’s life and reflect her passion and love for animals. Butterflies were one of Catherine’s favorite creatures, which served as the inspiration behind the symbolic renaming of the Monarch Butterfly. The CVH Animal Sanctuary includes a NABA Certified Monarch Garden, committed to creating, conserving and protecting Monarch habitats.
“We could not be more excited to partner with the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary in honor of Catherine’s birthday and to continue our efforts to protect Monarchs, and all butterflies and their habitats. Throughout human history, many peoples have believed that butterflies are the repositories of human souls. How fitting it is then, that we continue Catherine’s work of showing kindness toward animals, including butterflies, reminding everyone that if we can save butterflies, we can save ourselves,” said Dr. Jeffrey Glassberg, founder and president of NABA.
In addition to its Monarch Garden, the sanctuary has educated more than 150,000 people, found forever homes for more than 800 animals, and provided free veterinary support and pet food to the animals of 450 financially insecure senior pet owners.
Since 2013, Tracy-Locke, leading commerce and communications agency, has partnered with the CVH Animal Sanctuary pro-bono, helping the organization further Catherine’s message of kindness to the world and raise support for the Sanctuary. Tracy-Locke’s work is rooted in compelling people to open their hearts to the meaningful cause of the CVH Animal Sanctuary.
“With roots in the Connecticut community, we’re proud to be a part of this meaningful moment remembering Catherine Violet Hubbard and her kindness,” said Phil Camarota, chief creative officer at Tracy-Locke. “The concept to rename the butterfly was inspired by the story of Catherine, where she experienced a Monarch Butterfly landing on her finger and whispered to it ‘tell your friends that I am kind,’ so the butterfly would let other animals know that she would treat them with love and kindness. We could not imagine a more authentic manifestation of Catherine’s legacy of love and empathy.”
The Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary will host its annual Catherine’s Butterfly Party on June 8 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET at Fairfield Hills in Newtown, Conn. to honor Catherine’s birthday and her love of animals. There will be a ceremony marking the Butterfly Renaming as well as an official United States Congressional Citation presented 1:15 p.m. ET. In addition to the butterfly renaming ceremony and citation presentation, this free family festival will include a celebration of kindness, hundreds of adoptable pets from over 31 rescue organizations, animal ambassador exhibits, K-9 demonstrations, face painting, crafts and more. You can find more information on the event here.
About the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary:
The Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation is a Connecticut-based nonprofit organization working to promote compassion and healing through human-animal connection. The foundation was started in 2013 to commemorate and honor the life of Catherine Violet Hubbard, a six-year-old victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy and passionate animal lover who dreamt of someday working with and caring for them. In 2014, the Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation was awarded over 34 acres of Connecticut state farmland by a unanimous vote from the Connecticut State House of Representatives and Senate, which would become home to the Catherine Violet Hubbard Sanctuary. The sanctuary pays tribute to Catherine and her spirit of kindness towards all living things by honoring the bond between humans, animals and the environment. Since its inception, the organization has raised over $8 million in funding, including grants from the ASPCA, private sector partners and thousands of individuals, to support its breadth of programming, including a pollinator protection initiative providing critical shelter, sustenance and migration space for butterflies, hummingbirds, bees and other critical ecosystem pollinators, free community workshops around animal care and environmental protection, aid for seniors to keep and care for their pets and much more. Donations also go towards the sanctuary’s ongoing construction of onsite facilities, a certified living building including a vet in-take center, learning barn and library. For more information on donating, programming and volunteer opportunities, visit www.cvhfoundation.org.
About North American Butterfly Association:
The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) is a national nonprofit organization with a mission to create a world where butterflies thrive, for the benefit of nature and people. NABA envisions a future where wild butterflies flourish in healthy habitats, none are threatened or endangered, and all people can enjoy observing them in nature. Founded in 1992, NABA has 23 chapters across 14 states which engage and educate their communities and focus their butterfly conservation efforts locally. NABA increases butterfly habitat through its Butterfly Garden Program, which has certified nearly 11,000 gardens from backyards to schools, nature preserves to corporate HQs. Through its Butterfly Monitoring Program, which conducts hundreds of annual citizen scientist-led butterfly counts across the continent, NABA has amassed the largest database of butterfly sightings in the world, regularly used by researchers to study population trends and butterfly biology. NABA owns and operates the National Butterfly Center in Mission, TX, a nature preserve that welcomes tens of thousands of visitors each year and hosts the annual Texas Butterfly Festival. The Center’s 100 acres of restored habitat are home to 246 species of butterflies, nearly 300 species of birds, 60 species of dragonflies and 130 species of reptiles. NABA publishes two quarterly magazines, American Butterflies and Butterfly Gardener, and believes that “if we can save butterflies, we can save ourselves.” For more information and to support its work, visit www.naba.org.
