Pomona, CA | ecrescenzi@gmail.com

Elinor Crescenzi is an engaging community organizer with an inspiring dedication to sustainability and social justice, currently working on projects designed to dismantle systematic oppressions through community-based ecological farming, food access, environmental justice, community composting, integrative nutrition education, and zero waste advocacy. Elinor has a longstanding passion for developing community composting program infrastructure and over 10 years experience doing so with people of diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds in a variety of settings, including schools, churches, community gardens, teacher training centers, farmers markets, neighborhoods, municipalities, and backyards. Elinor is currently a core organizer with the Food Cycle Collective, a collaborative initiative that comes together to care for the earth and the people on it by centering composting, bikes, food, and community-building. Elinor is also a core organizer of the ECOFARM initiative, a grassroots effort aimed at inspiring and empowering people to engage in ecological- and community-oriented composting and food cultivation.

Session Code: D4

Track: California

Session Name: Community Composters – An Emerging Sector

Session Time: Thursday, Jan 26, 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM

Presentation Title: Community Composters — An Emerging Sector

Presentation Description: Elinor will join a panel of speakers representing the Community Composting for Green Spaces project, the inaugural round of community composting funding from California’s Department of Resources and Recovery (CalRecycle). This program is a partnership between state government and community composters in which approximately 120 community composting sites have been supported through state funding over the past 2 years. Elinor is available to share on many aspects of program development and execution, including activism and engagement prior to the existence of the funding stream, proposal & coalition building, community outreach, horizontal organizing, regional coordination & project coordination, local political engagement, engagement with large waste haulers, and a large variety of on the ground composting and community experiences.