Kennedy Plaza Farmers Market hosts Operation Community Compost program with Girl Scouts to collect food waste from LB homes

Have you always felt terrible about throwing out so much food waste, and wished you could start composting? But maybe don't have a yard for a compost bin or even know where to begin? The Community Compost program with Girl Scout Troop 2260 and LI Greenmarket Inc. will be collecting compostable scraps and educating market goers about how to compost every Saturday Market during the hours of 11am- 1pm. 

Girl Scout Troop 2260 will also be reusing donate coffee grinds from Gentle Brew- a local Long Beach Coffee roaster and Cafe, by handing them out to visitors for their own home-composting projects. "This is a great way to educate our Long Beach community about more sustainable practices, reduce waste, and empower our youth here at home," LI Greenmarket Director, Georgia LoPresti Meckes states. "These young ladies have been working so hard and learning so much about this subject this school year. They are true experts!" 

The collected compost will then be driven over to the Nike Work-based learning center, an alternative public high school program within the Long Beach School District. The compost will then be added to the existing composting center that helps to fortify the 18 raised planting beds that constitutes Nike's Gardening and The Sprout Project programs. Many of their growing Sprouts and produce is offered at the Farmers Market and the students at Nike do an internship with LI Greenmarket to learn about growing, harvesting, packaging, marketing, and sales. They also learn about environmental stewardship and supporting local businesses and younger youth. 

"This is Full-circle Food Shed rebuilding," LoPresti Meckes continues. "This is a mainstay of why our organization works as hard as it does. When we have younger youth educating the public about how to reuse what we think is waste and reappropriate it to support another local educational food model, it's a very important and big win for everyone." 

Be sure to visit the Girl Scouts on Saturdays, drop your sorted food waste, or pick up your coffee grinds and help LI Greenmarket Inc. do better for Long Beach each week. 

When: Saturdays, 11am- 1pm

Where: Kennedy Plaza Farmers Market

What: Community Composting with Girl Scout Troop 2260

How: Bring down your collected compostable Food scraps and/or collect Free Coffee grinds for your own home composting program.