South Pasadena, CA | ginav@lacompost.org

Gina Vollono was born and raised in Los Angeles and has worked in the urban agriculture sector for over a decade. Gina is committed to environmental education and facilitating meaningful ways to engage with urban spaces and provide land stewardship. Gina loves to compost and watch its transformation from beginning to end, as it reflects our own potential for change and renewal, individually and as a community.

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: Since October 2020, the California Alliance for Community Composting has been supported by the California Climate Initiatives and the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. We are assisting CalRecycle to administer the $1.5M “Community Composting for Green Spaces”(CCGS) pilot grant program, which runs through March 2023. CACC’s program coordinators and technical advisors will present a full panel discussion on this state-led funding opportunity for launching, expanding, and improving small-scale composting operations. Our Alliance will share our experiences implementing CCGS in 6 priority regions throughout California, our “Soil Stewardship Training” curriculum, and our use of remote sensing technology and software applications. Our goal is to demonstrate how viable, integral, and affordable community-based organizations are to meeting organics diversion targets at a regional scale. In addition to technical assistance for CCGS site development, CACC will also discuss our support to community groups for basic market development, including tracking metrics, compost quality assurance, community engagement, and other key elements that need to be in place so that these community- and farm-based operations are able to sustain operations after the grant period offering place-based jobs and healthy soil to their communities.