Take a tour of some of the capstone project sites of the Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Composter Training Program.

1. Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders
Composter Training Program
Tour of Capstone Project Sites
Washington, DC Metro Area
August, 2015

2. Elsie Whitlow Stokes Public Charter School (DC)
The applied learned knowledge and skills,
leadership, and personal initiative that have
contributed to Karim Ewing-Boyd’s capstone
project make this effort a model not only for
fellow and future NSRs, but for school
systems throughout the region and country.
As a self-starter, Karim already had built a 3-
bin composting system before he entered
the NSR program. Karim upgraded that
system by building a new 3-bin system with
students and parents and developing a
classroom vermicomposting system. He
plans to build another 3-bin system during a
garden community event in order to
increase capacity toward his goal of
servicing partner school cafeterias, local
restaurants, and even neighborhood
grocers.

3. EW Stokes Public Charter School, Cont’d
Karim is taking a holistic approach to his composting systems
as he plans to install a native grassy conservation landscape or
bioswale to proactively capture any water running off his
system site.
The true beauty of his program is
the integration of core
curriculum lessons in math in
science (e.g. the study of soil
food webs) through composting
activities and an “outdoor
classroom” setting. Students
learn leadership and
sustainability skills by being
compost captains, and routinely
monitor and maintain the
composting systems. Karim
reports that the program
composts nearly 150 gallons of
food scraps per week.

4. EW Stokes Public Charter School, Cont’d
Karim hopes to serve as a teaching model for others in the DC School Garden Network:
“The earliest compost is now in the garden beds and kids just had spinach and butter
lettuce on the salad bar grown in beds amended with compost from their old food.
Cool, huh?”
Organizing, training,
and getting “buy-in”
from the cafeteria
staff are critical
component of the EW
Stokes and any school
composting program.
Karim also instills
leadership and
sustainability
principles in his
students by
designating 25
“compost captains”
that help make the
operation run
efficiently.

5. Berwyn Heights Elementary School (MD)
Ben Fischler and Beth LeaMond
jumpstarted a dormant 2-bin
composting system at Berwyn
Heights Elementary School (BHES)
and rekindled a stronger
relationship between ECO City
Farms and the school. Ben was an
exemplary NSR in regard to
tracking and displaying data via
easily comprehensible graphs for
BHES children, faculty, and staff,
and their team worked closely
with ECO City Farms instructors to
address troubleshooting issues
during cold weather months. Beth
created and conducted a
presentation for their key partners
in this endeavor, the school’s 4th to
5th grade environmental club and
teacher supervisor.

6. Berwyn Heights Elementary School, Con’t
While Ben and Beth were responsible for
“activating” this bin, they formed a
partnership with this club, conducted fun
hands-on compost work days with them to
teach how to build a proper bin pile and get
it “cooking,” and shared maintenance and
temperature monitoring responsibilities
with the club and teachers. The team also
continues to perform outreach and
education to build new relationships that
will support composting efforts at the
school and in other local neighborhoods
with entities such as the BHES garden
program, other local schools like Greenbelt
Elementary and Robert Goddard French
Immersion School, attendees at local
sustainability conferences in Baltimore, MD,
and community and senior centers. The
team looks forward to screening and
applying a useable batch of compost for
school garden edible plantings this fall
season.

7. Howard University’s HALO Green Garden (DC)
As one of the most active
leaders in the fall 2014
course, Jeffrey Neal
ambitiously carried out 2
local composting projects.
First, he partnered with DC
Department of Parks and
Rec (DPR) to construct a 3-
bin composting system at
the Howard University
Campus HALO Green
Garden. Jeffrey has also
partnered with the local
niche organics collection
service, Compost Cab, to
provide weekly drop-offs
for the system’s “greens”
nitrogen source.

8. HALO Green Garden, Con’t
In addition, Jeffrey’s persistence
and diligent work to implement a
vermicomposting system in his
own apartment condominium
paid off mid-spring when
management approved his
installation of worm bins under
unoccupied stairwell space in the
building’s garage. Jeffrey’s
outspoken composting advocacy
has reached over one hundred
community members including
dinner party guests, condo
neighbors feeding the worm bin,
college students, and even
military officers (as he is a
reservist).

9. ECO City Farms at Bladensburg (MD)
Aida Namukasa began a “compost network” consisting of both drop-offs from local food
scrap generators (e.g. apartment dwellers, food pantry suppliers, neighborhood
residents) as well as routine collection by Aida, herself, picking up from the local
elementary school. These organics feed a single-bin aerobic composting system as well
as a multi-bin vermicomposting system at ECO City Farms at Bladensburg.

10. ECO City Farms at Bladensburg, Con’t
This is a particularly special project because it
initiated composting and education on how
composting builds healthy soil (for local
nutritious food production) in a low-income
housing “food desert,” at the location of ECO
City’s second and newly emerging farm site. Aida
has been able to give several presentations at
the local Magic Johnson Community Center and
ECO City Farms’ “Let’s Talk Food” event, build a
relationship with the local convenient store to
discuss composting and healthy food
alternatives, and host field trips to the farm for
the Port Towns Elementary School teachers and
children. Aida has helped work with and train,
both youth and older citizens to participate in
her program and the NSR Spring 2015 Advanced
Composter class. She says that engaging new
community members about her program has
become a daily occurrence. Aida has also been
diligent to monitor and record data to gauge the
waste diversion impact and progress of her
project.

11. Project EDEN (DC)
Xavier Brown has begun a
capstone project at one
of the most deserving
sites in the city. Project
EDEN (Everyone Deserves
to Eat Naturally) is part of
a church community in
southeast DC, a low-
income urban area.
Project EDEN already has
a hoop house to grow
fruits and vegetables year
round. Xavier heads his
own start-up
organization, Green
Schemes, which helped
implement this DPR
composting bin system to
provide for year-round
growing.

12. Project EDEN, Con’t
Xavier is helping to educate at-risk
youth from project EDEN on
composting, and will work with two
Project EDEN representatives from
the spring 2015 NSR Advanced
Composter class to set up a
sustainable composting system at
their site. Pastor Cheryl Gaines
believes that the composting skills
and knowledge now being developed
at project EDEN are providing social
and entrepreneurial opportunities
and alternatives to the murder and
gun violence that have plagued her
community. Project EDEN
representatives are currently
collecting organics from on-site
landscaping activities and will be
working to maintain this composting
system with a youth-founded start-up
affiliate company, as a compliment to
Project EDEN.

13. Lovejoy Community Garden (DC)
Alex Trutko and Thad Arnold teamed up to
support the DPR Compost Cooperative at
Lovejoy Community Garden in northeast DC. In
collaboration with DC Department of Parks and
Rec (DPR) Community Garden Specialist, Josh
Singer, the team helped build a 3-bin
composting system. They continue to add
members and help manage the system to
produce finished compost for the on-site
garden.
In developing the cooperative at Lovejoy
Garden, Alex and Thad have collectively
conducted 10 community engagement
activities including hosting composting
trainings, outreaching to the local farmers
market, and recruiting community gardeners to
join the cooperative. As a result, they have
engaged 20 community members, have
implemented a weekly food scrap drop-off
schedule, and have a full and actively
composting bin.

14. John Burroughs Education Campus (DC)
Freedome Lee has revitalized a dormant 2-
bin composting system at John Burroughs
Education Campus (JBEC). The been was
inactive and collecting only some garden
debris and trash. Working with the NSR staff
and the JBEC school garden coordinator,
Freedome has since helped transform the bin
into an actively composting system.
Freedome is working to recruit additional in-
school support to develop a long-term
maintenance plan as she learns from fellow
NSR classmates who have been operating
robust school composting programs. Her
future plans are to to develop a children’s
composting book, continue educating her
family on her experimental home worm bins,
and develop educational videos and
composting lesson plans for her new job
position with the nearby Noyes Education
Campus.

15. Love and Carrots (DC, MD, VA)
Morgan Morris is installing single-bin
composting systems equipped with proper
feedstock storage receptacles for both
“brown” and “green” organics at private
residences in Maryland, DC, and Virginia. She
is doing so in partnership with Urban Farm
Plans, a local urban farming build and design
company. By working with her employer, Love
& Carrots (L&C), a garden design, installation,
and maintenance company, this capstone
project demonstrates the diverse avenues to
building a decentralized, small-scale,
composting infrastructure and the importance
of local business’ role in doing so. She has
become a composting resource for L&C and
has helped expand business opportunities by
enhancing the company’s composting
installation, maintenance, and education
capabilities. Morgan reports that more than
20 of her clients are composting now and that
she also works with them to offer long-term
composting maintenance plans and guidance.

16. Love & Carrots, Con’t
In addition to her work directly with clients, her in-house
knowledge-sharing has provided a foundation of
composting know-how for fellow co-workers who are
extremely interested in applying to the next NSR
composter training course. Morgan is also exploring ideas
for passive aerated windrow system (PAWS) piles
(modeled after the nearby ECO City Farms flagship
Edmonston, MD site) and native growing systems at L&C
headquarters to sustainably process larger amounts of
landscape debris the company generates.

17. Hillcrest Community Garden (DC)
Walter Allen is one of the many
NSRs collaborating with program
partner, Josh Singer of DPR, to
develop Compost Cooperatives
featuring the 3-bin composting
system. This summer, Walter
along with Josh and other
members of the NSR family
participated in the building of
the DPR bin in his Hillcrest
Garden community in southeast
DC. Walter has already
developed a composting name
for himself, as local residents
have begun referring to him as
the “compost guy” for his
outreach and collection of
“brown” leaf material to use in
the system.

18. Palisades Community Garden (DC)
The collaboration and support within the
NSR community is exemplified by the
resource-sharing done by Michael Rudolph,
whose capstone project site is at Palisades
Community Garden in northwest DC, and
Walter Allen. Walter shared his supply of
leaves with Michael, which has
supplemented Michael’s stock of purchased
straw material, and Michael participated in
the bin build at Walter’s Hillcrest site.
Michael, whose DPR installed 3-bin system is
situated near an overlook of the Potomac
River, has steadily recruited enough
cooperative members, responding to his
flyer postings and other DPR outreach, to
activate his composting system. Michael has
conducted a few DPR Compost Cooperative
trainings with new members, a few of whom
are now actively participating in the
maintenance of the composting system.

19. Takoma Park Community Center (MD)
Nadine Bloch, with ILSR Co-Director and NSR
instructor Brenda Platt, is developing a community
composting program with a local youth group, the
Young Activists Club (YAC). Nadine and Brenda,
long-time leaders of the YAC, have worked with
the club to: conduct extensive community
outreach, recruit supporters such as the local
Department of Public Works (DPW), tour local
composting facilities to review best options for
their own project and teach the kids composting
concepts and skills, and host media events to
announce their compost project and participate in
Earth Day activities reaching hundreds of
community members. The team is working to
implement a version of a 3-bin composting system
at the local Takoma Park Community Center. To
provide further project ownership and
empowerment to the next generation of
composters, Nadine is hopes to help the children
develop their own guide to community-based
composting. In addition, the team will partner
with Urban Farm Plans to design a kid-centric
composting system.