Julie Cook began keeping bees about five years ago while working for Savannah Bee Company, which sells honey and other bee products. Contributed

For over 20 years, Main Street Bath has drawn pedestrians to the City of Ships with the sweet smells and colorful blooms of its Downtown Flowers program.

This summer, the organization is hoping the program will attract a different group: butterflies, bees and other pollinators.

Main Street Bath is taking steps to transform the community into a “pollinator pathway,” according to Director Amanda McDaniel. By lining the city with plants that attract and nourish migrating pollinators, the group hopes to support local ecosystems and food production.

“This community in Bath is very green,” McDaniel said. “Their mind is focused on recycling and the earth and climate change. This is right in line with that.”

Each year, Bath’s Beth Hawkes Farm & Greenhouse provides over 1,000 flowers to decorate approximately 100 light posts, 14 whiskey barrels, and 10-25 street boxes from Memorial Day through Columbus Day.

The project costs about $25,000 annually, McDaniel said. Bath contributes roughly half the funds, while the organization raises the rest by reaching out to community members.

Caption: Each year, Maine Street Bath hires Beth Hawkes Farm & Greenhouse to provide and maintain flowers that decorate the city’s light posts. Contributed / Amanda McDaniel

Julie Cook, general manager of Mae’s Café, helped inspire this year’s focus on pollinators, according to McDaniel.

Cook, an amateur beekeeper, recently moved from Westport, Connecticut, one of a growing number of towns to join the growing “pollinator pathway” movement.

“If you don’t have any bees, you don’t have any food,” said Cook, who convinced McDaniel to center this year’s program around insects. “If you don’t have any food, you don’t have any humans.”

Many pollinators, which play a vital role in agricultural production and natural ecosystems, migrate, according to Cook. By planting native plants that produce the pollen and nectar that support pollinators, communities create “pit stops” along their migration route.

According to the EPA, pollinators have suffered in recent years due to a number of factors, including poor nutrition due to loss of habitat and pesticide exposure.

“So many different places are now using dangerous chemicals,” said Tiffany Leeman, who works at Beth Hawkes Farm & Greenhouse with her mother Beth and sister-in-law Abbie Kennedy. “It’s great to get rid of your weeds, but it’s also not good for your pollinators.”

The Beth Hawkes team, which has provided and maintained the Downtown Flowers blooms each year of the project’s existence, worked with McDaniel to find options that would attract both pollinators and people. They settled on heliotrope, a purple flower with an “absolutely amazing vanilla smell,” and honey wort.

Bath will need to take additional steps to become an official pollinator pathway, including starting a steering committee to guide the project, McDaniel said, who called this year’s program “a really great start.”

Regardless of whether the city decides to become an official pathway, Cook said she’ll keep advocating for the bees and butterflies responsible for the flowers that will decorate Bath this summer.

“It’s very near and dear to my heart,” she said. “I can’t stop talking about it.”