Community Composting
Community Composting (C3) is an expansion of our two year Urban Composting Project.
We are currently in the planning stages of the social enterprise endeavor funded by Enterprising Non-Profits. The business will provide compost pick up services to all Nelson residents as well as providing the finished compost for sale.
A mechanized facility will be constructed that will aerate the piles and increase the rate of microbial activity, taking only 4 weeks to transform from food waste to usable soil.
The business aims to employ youth and persons with disabilities where ever possible. We are currently soliciting any community member that want to share their business expertise to join one of the following working groups:
1. Capital Funding Research
2. Regulation Requirements
3. Facility Construction
4. Marketing
5. Management Planning
To become involved please contact Colleen Matte, Earth Matters Manager.
Harvest Rescue (Harvest Rescue Downloads)
From 1998 to 2006 Earth Matters ran the Fruit Tree Project, which connected Nelson and area fruit tree owners who couldn't harvest all their fruit with community members who could use the fruit. In 2007, Harvest Rescue continues the work of that project but has expanded to include gleaning from backyard gardens and local farms.
This year, between July and November, Harvest Rescue will coordinate volunteers to pick fruits and vegetables that would otherwise end up as compost or bear bait, and distribute them among social service agencies in our region. Later in the summer Harvest Rescue will host community food preservation workshops.
We are a volunteer driven project. Our goal is to increase access for everyone to fresh, locally grown food, as well as reduce waste, the potential for bear-human conflict and our reliance on food requiring long-haul transportation. We hope this project will encourage local food sourcing and greater community support for our local farmers.
Harvest Rescue is a joint project of Earth Matters and the Nelson Food Cupboard Society. In 2007 it is overseen directly by the www.foodcupboard.org and funded by a Columbia Basin Trust youth grant.
For more information for Pickers and Fruit Tree/Garden Owners click here. There are also updated resources available for download here.
Farm To Table High School Education Program
This exciting program builds on our previous success of the Food to Table One Tonne Challenge program. With new funding from the Columbia Basin Trust we are able to deliver this innovative program throughout the West Kootenays. High school classes will receive an in class presentation that highlights the mechanisms of climate change with respect to our current food systems.
Next the students are off to the grocery store to see their choices in action and understand the current dilemma of a corporate operated food system. Bonus features of this program include letter writing workshops and a teachers manual available upon request. Also, an artist submission competition will be organized, taking in entries that relate youth's feeling towards climate change and food in photo, poetry, drawn or painted form.
An awards event will finish off the program where category winners will receive their prizes. Please contact the Project Coordinators for more details or to sign up your class!