Past President, Teresa Hagen, dedicated much of her term to becoming an advocate for the environmental concerns of Long Beach Island.  As President of The Garden Club of Long Beach Island, Teresa was part of the Birds and Wildlife Committee that worked on educating the public on the plight of the monarch butterflies and on trying to improve their habitat in our local area. Specifically, this committee purchased milkweed and other plants preferred by monarchs, planted them in pots, and then distributed them in public spaces to raise awareness. Volunteers watered and took care of the pots. In addition, Barnegat Light gave the club an area to manage specifically for butterflies in their public park. Teresa was so smitten with these monarchs that she even participated in hand-raising some of them from eggs to adult.

Besides this passion, Teresa also advocated for keeping balloons off the island in order to keep our sea life from being threated by inadvertently ingesting balloons that made it into our waterways.

Teresa was also responsible for putting together our first website and taking our club to the next technological level. Teresa resigned shortly after her term ended; but we remember her as a person who worked tirelessly for our club and its goals.

As a professional writer and editor, Teresa saw the value of letting the LBI community know all about Garden Club activities, service projects for children and seniors, as well as our amazing public events.  She established a strong publicity program of photographs and articles to run in local press and websites that accomplished this. Teresa also found computer designer talent that took The Garden Club to a new level.

Always an environmentalist herself, Teresa wrote and printed a pamphlet on banning balloons that is still used today. She also established the environmental chair, making it a board position after years of being a consultant job, assuring the club would always have a strong environmental message.