Monarch Butterflies Nurtured at Fairhaven Senior Services’ Waystation

What began in Spring 2023 with a 10-gallon fishtank with removable screen top and lots of willpower in Fairhaven Senior Services’ lobby is now a year-round process, and all to save the monarch butterflies.

Tena Engels—Fairhaven’s Monarch Queen, receptionist, and unit clerk—is the driving force behind the effort. Engels had been quietly nurturing caterpillars, giving safe space for their chrysalises and then reintroducing the new monarchs into the wild for almost two decades before beginning that first small effort at Fairhaven’s Whitewater, Wis., campus. 

The lobby habitat—visited by residents throughout each season—was enlarged in 2024 and, in 2025, Fairhaven was certified as a Monarch Waystation to help the monarchs’ offspring make their annual trek to their winter home in the mountains of Mexico. Next year, the new generation of monarchs will make their way back to the United States and Canada, stopping at places like Fairhaven to lay eggs on the undersides of milkweed leaves. 

After each butterfly emerges from its chrysalis and its wings dry (a 24-hour process), Engels and various Fairhaven residents and visitors release the new monarchs to the waystation. There, they lay eggs. In September, a new group of monarchs will begin the journey to Mexico.

Each monarch is named in honor of residents, residents who have recently passed away, residents’ family members, and friends and visitors to Fairhaven. Recently, Calvin—the great-grandson of a resident—released his namesake at the waystation.

Engels said the waystation has been helped by another like-minded team of Fairhaven residents whose efforts began two pollinator gardens this year. “The waystation is buzzing!” Engels said. “With the addition of the pollinator gardens, we have seen an uptick of winged creatures. We’ve even had a hummingbird flitting around.”

Without essential milkweed plants throughout their spring and summer breeding areas in North America, monarchs would never be able to complete the long journey to Mexico. The need for host plants for larvae and energy sources for adults applies to all monarch and butterfly populations around the world. The new pollinator gardens include at least two types of milkweed to bolster the efforts of the monarch waystation.

While the two Fairhaven efforts are independent, they share mutual outcomes and support. “In a very real sense, our pollinator gardens expand the impact of Engels’ monarch waystation,” said Kristine Zaballos, pollinator garden expert who assisted the committee in organizing that effort, “and Tena has supported our efforts by selling notecards and coffee mugs for us at the front desk” to benefit the pollinator gardens.

To date, 14 monarch butterflies have been released, five females and nine males. Currently, there are 10 chrysalises in the habitat, eight caterpillars, and two eggs.

While all of the releases are special, Engels has a soft spot for the children. “I love when residents and family bring their grandkids to share the process,” she said.