On Friday, November 4th the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Composting for Community Initiative Project Manager Linda Bilsens and IREX fellow Santa Krastina attended an event sponsored by the D.C. Department of Public Works, Compost Cab, and the E.W. Stokes Public Charter School on the value of rescuing and composting pumpkins instead of throwing them in the trash.
The event featured Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and DPW Director Christopher Shorter speaking to the students of E.W. Stokes School about the importance of the city’s composting efforts via the DPW’s new Food Scrap Drop-Off program. Mayor Bowser also lauded E.W. Stokes School for their commendable school-focused composting efforts, which ILSR has supported since it started in 2014. Read more about this project, here. Check out a selection of photos from the pumpkin rescue and composting event below.
Also present at the event was a graduate of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders composter training program. Abdu’l-Karim Ewing-Boyd, the Director of Special Programs at EW Stokes Public Charter School in NE DC, is a graduate of our inaugural Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Master Composter program in 2014. The NSR is a collaboration between ILSR and ECO City Farms. Karim started the composting system at EW Stokes as his NSR capstone project, so that he could help compost food scraps from the school’s cafeteria, while integrating composting into the school’s IB curriculum.
Compost Cab, a co-host of this event is a key collaborator of the NSR training program, providing a clean stream of food scraps to community-based composting projects in the DC metro area and Baltimore. They are now running the DC Dept. of Public Works’ Food Scrap Collection Program.
Find more information about the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilder’s composter training program below:
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