Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** the focus of this project is to…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** the focus of this project is to establish a beachhead in NH of schools and towns that show how food waste diversion and sharing can be implemented successfully. A successful outcome will be getting food waste diversion institutionalized by the 2ND or 3RD year of this project where the towns and schools make IT a part of the culture.an emphasis will be made supporting areas that have a lower social-economic status and higher food insecure index. Using tools likefeeding america, we will make sure that these communities are not left behind. From an agriculture perspective, some NH schools and towns work with farms that take the food waste and turn IT into compost and feed for animals. We will make sure to strenghen that relationship through this funding.during this project, we will communicate to residents and students that food waste diversion can be cost effective for towns and schools by lessening tipping fees. IT will also bolster community spirit knowing that diverting food waste from landfills is one of the best solutions to reduce our carbon footprint, protect our environment and drawdown methane from escaping into the atmosphere.one of the best methods to explain the results of this project will be storytelling. The story can be a school telling about its food waste diversion trajectory during food waste prevention week (april 10TH to april 16TH ) or a town's commitment to food waste diversion being featured in a local newspaper. Getting the word out that talks about positive change in a community will help to transend some of the indifference that plagues our treatment of food waste diversion and solutions that address climate change.last, practicing food waste diversion in the schools is a great entry point to introduce climate education and get the NH department of education to follow the lead of states like NJ where climate change has been integrated into the curriculum. The ultimate goal of this project is to kick start a trend of towns funding their own food waste initiatives that will lead to the state of NH putting in organic food waste law that legally requires residents and businesses to divert food scraps from their trash. While implementing a law like this has its issues, states like vermont have reported since its 2020 implementation of its own food waste BAN, 85% of its residents are composting and 61% are reporting that they have a moral obligation to keep food scraps out of landfills (UVM 2022) . This type of progress is a far better outcome for a state like new hampshire being ranked 6TH in the country ( big rentz, 2022) for producing new landfill waste and having one of the worst records on diverting waste from its landfills.