We are proud to announce the ten awardees of the 2024 BIPOC Community Composter Mini-Grant Program. Recipient organizations include educational institutions, Native Nations, farms, community gardens, and nonprofit organizations in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Projects are diverse in scale and operation but are united in their mission-driven, innovative approach to community improvement. 11th Hour Racing’s support makes this opportunity possible. This BIPOC Community Composter Mini-Grant Program provides $165,000 in sub-grants to selected grantees, with a minimum grant of $5,000 and a maximum of $20,000.
A green jobs reentry program for formerly incarcerated individuals, composting services for public housing residents, food sovereignty for Native families, and community education on composting as an environmental justice issue are just a few of the projects ILSR is funding through the BIPOC Community Composter Mini-Grant Program.
While several New England states have enacted legislation to divert food waste from disposal, mainly targeting large food waste generators. While abundant resources are available to assist supermarkets and other food waste generators in meeting these regulations, there needs to be more support for schools, community gardens, and urban farms in historically excluded neighborhoods to establish a local circular economy. This program addresses this disparity by providing limited resources and guidance to fill this gap.
Bootstrap Compost is a community-oriented food waste hauler serving over 90 Massachusetts and Rhode Island communities, including households, schools, offices, and restaurants. Bootstrap Compost focuses on environmental justice communities, most notably through their reduced-rate program in Everett. With this grant, they will provide composting services to multiunit public housing buildings through a partnership with the Boston Housing Authority. The City’s compost-hauling contract does not currently cover these buildings, so they will be expanding accessibility to composting to buildings that are underserved and predominantly made up of BIPOC residents.
Ceeds4Change creates self-sustaining collaborations with public schools, higher education institutions, and businesses that encourage organic and non-GMO gardening, nutritious cooking, and healthy eating. With the support of this grant, they will engage in staff and volunteer education to incorporate composting into their gardening activities. They will also incorporate composting into their educational programming through classroom visits and a summer leadership program.
Ceiba Arbor will be a farm cooperative that blends growing food, arts, education, and ceremony, serving as a model for other farmers of color who aspire to do the same. It will be an inter-generational retreat space, calling in people who want to learn how to be in a relationship with the land. They plan to build an on-site composting system to process folks’ food scraps from the local Salem, CT area, potentially partnering with nearby businesses or schools through a pick-up program. They also plan to create a workshop circuit exploring different compost methods in urban farming settings, especially in New London, CT.
Common Ground Urban Farm/New Haven Ecology Project is a center for learning and leadership. They invite people across ages and identities to connect to their urban environment, build community, grow to their full potential, and contribute to a just and sustainable world.
While they currently compost over 40,000 lbs of food waste annually, with this grant, they will grow their community connections and residents’ access to engage and learn about composting as the City of New Haven puts in long-term efforts to support municipal composting. They also will improve their equipment and support staff to continue and fine-tune production, enabling them to distribute more material to their urban farm, school gardens, community drop-off participants, and the general public, in addition to creating a site that supports public and professional education on composting and food waste as an environmental justice issue.
Garden Time, Inc. prepares incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals for the plant-based green industry workforce, equipping traditionally underserved populations with the skills, self-confidence, and support they need to successfully transition to long-term employment and productive life in the community. This grant will fund their Green Reentry Job Training program, through which graduates will work in their communities to spread the message that composting is for everyone. Partner organization Zero Waste Providence will provide canvassing training and technical assistance as these outreach interns acquire new skills and workforce competence. Listen to the impact of this program on the Composting for Community Podcast.
Global Village at Tuck Away Farm missions states, “We hope to bring all our diverse communities closer to their roots. We become stronger when we learn from each other, and food is a perfect way to show our pride and share our culture.” This grant will help them increase compost production and enable them to create a screened compost product for sale at discounted rates for BIPOC-led farms in their network, as well as sales at full price to increase revenue for the farm worker co-op and help them grow more food and employ more BIPOC community members. In addition to improving the equipment and product, it will help newer staff train as compost operators. With more staff training, they will be more effective at training other BIPOC farmers about compost and soil health.
Niweskok: From the Stars to Seeds is a collaboration between food and medicine providers. They rematriate Wabanaki lifeways by engaging with their kinship responsibilities and reclaiming traditional foods and healing. Niweskok prioritizes restoring the Penobscot Bay region as a Wabanaki food hub. This grant will allow them to develop more intentional composting on farms to benefit their food production, which is then shared with tribal communities. This grant will also support the integration of food waste capture into the food distribution program.
The Penobscot Tribal Farm addresses food inequity by providing access to local healthy foods and supporting economic development for the Penobscot Nation Community. This grant will support “Let’s Take Good Care of the Soil,” an existing composting effort and collaboration between the Penobscot Tribal Farm and Indian Island’s St. Ann’s Food Pantry to prevent food waste from entering the landfill. The produce on the farm is grown to supply the food pantry from which the food waste is received.
Pocasset Pokanoket Land Trust is an American Indian land trust that supports preserving Indigenous culture and history and promotes environmental healing. Through programs with an Indigenous framework, PPLT enhances community food sovereignty, provides training on natural resource conservation, and boosts farmers’ financial capacity while educating individuals about indigenous land stewardship and the sacred protection of Mother Earth. This grant will support the integration of backyard composting into their program, Indigenous Food Sovereignty, which fosters food sovereignty among low-income, tribal families in Rhode Island through backyard gardens.
The mission of Root Life LLC is to uplift communities by offering locally grown organic produce, organic value-added products, agriculture and environmental education services, sustainable garden design, home garden construction, and community garden management. With this grant, Root Life LLC will establish a 4-bin compost system at four community-centered farms in New Haven, CT, fostering environmental sustainability and community engagement. Through educational workshops, training of a part-time compost professional, and active involvement of community members, the project seeks to divert organic waste, enrich soil health, and promote sustainable agricultural practices.
In addition to funding, awardees will receive virtual hot composting training, a travel stipend to attend the 8th National Cultivating Community Composter Forum in Cleveland, Ohio, in October 2024, and access to ILSR’s Community Composter Coalition, a network of community composters that builds connections, spreads lessons learned and inspires new operations.
We thank the 65 applicants who thoughtfully applied to this opportunity, requesting $995,000. Decisions on selected grantees were guided by our Equity Principles Guide. This pilot program has demonstrated the vital need for funding that supports local, distributed composting operations for BIPOC communities. We hope to continue and grow this program in the future.
On the Composting for Community Podcast, Victor Perez and Carla Doughty discuss green reentry, composting, and reaching community where they're at.
ILSR will provide $150,000 in sub-grants to selected composters in historically underserved communities in New England and New York City.
ILSR lanzará el Programa de Minisubvenciones para Compostadores Comunitarios que soliciten financiación deben prestar servicios en la comunidades históricamente desatendidas o marginalizadas.