To the planting of a pollinator park near the Brookside boat landing.

A group of residents this morning was slated to plant a pollinator park at Brookside Park off of the walking trail past the dog park.

The objective is to raise awareness about decreasing pollinator populations, educate the general public on the importance of habitats for pollinators and to establish quality pollinator habitats across the state.

The project, which will be spread over about 1 1/4 acres, is being made possible through a grant.

Thank you to all those people who are involved in this effort, and we hope the message spreads to others.

The local message goes hand-in-hand with efforts earlier this week by a woman who is riding her bicycle 10,000 miles from central Mexico all the way up into Canada, over to the East Coast and then back to Mexico — all to spread awareness about the monarch butterfly. The butterfly has seen about a 90 percent decline in population over the last 20 years. She, too, wants to help bring back habitat for the butterflies. We hope that all of these efforts will spark an interest to help in others.

To the first Albert Lea Lakers games.

Albert Lea’s new collegiate baseball team had its first game of the season Friday night and will have its first home game of the season today at Hayek Field.

A lot of planning and work has been done behind the scenes to make this team a reality, and we wish it success in its first season.

There will be home games at least once or twice a week most of the summer, and we encourage residents to come out and show their support.

The team has players from all over the country.

To a report of vandalism this week at Fountain Lake Park.

We were disappointed to hear from Albert Lea police this week that the sign on the back of the staircase at Fountain Lake Park was spray-painted over the weekend. Albert Lea police said vandalizing was “probably the result of poor choices related to a community member’s passing.”

We encourage Albert Lea residents to keep an eye out for suspicious behavior around the community and to report it to police when it is seen. While the death of any friend or family member is difficult to deal with, vandalizing a beautiful public space is not an appropriate way to handle grief. We were pleased to see Thursday evening that the paint had been cleaned off.