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The giant monarch is more than cheerful park decoration. After the Ohio River flooded Utica in 2018, the nearby community center became a shelter and volunteers spent weeks feeding displaced neighbors. Volunteers fed about 100 people a day for nine weeks. Later that year, the town participated in the Arts Alliance’s Monarch Butterfly Festival, and the Alliance ultimately commissioned the butterfly statue as a reminder of what the town had endured and of better days ahead when neighbors helped one another.