Eco-Extraordinaires January 2017

Calvary Episcopal Church  Grows Local Produce for Area Food Pantry

Calvary Episcopal Church of Lombard built their community gardens this past spring. SCARCE pitched in by donating a lead-free hose and rescued garden supplies from the community, including chicken wire. Some members attended SCARCE’s open house in December and shared the result of their efforts. Over their first season, they donated 81 lbs of fresh, local produce to the Lombard/Villa Park Food Pantry. Way to give back to your community and promote local foods!

Westin Hotel Gives Old Chairs New Life at West Garfield Park Church

The Westin Hotel Lombard recently purchased new chairs for their event space. Hundreds were worn out but an equally large amount were perfectly fine. They contacted SCARCE to try to find a home for the usable chairs. We helped the Westin to recycle the worn out chairs via scrap metal recycling and reached out to our contacts to find an organization that could use chairs. New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, of the West Garfield Park neighborhood in Chicago, contacted SCARCE immediately. They coordinated with the Westin to rent a truck and pick up a load of chairs. As of this writing, they have received 600 chairs for reuse in their community hall.

More chairs are available – if your organization (non-profit or schools only) could use chairs, contact us!
The Westin Lombard is a recipient of the Earth Flag certification from SCARCE and DuPage County. 

School District 45 Begins Lunchroom Composting Program

School District 45 is now diverting all lunchroom food scraps from the landfill! Students and staff dispose of their leftovers in food scrap collection bins next to the recycling and trash. The food scraps are picked up by a waste hauler and composted at a commercial facility. School District 45 serves 3,400 students from Villa Park, Lombard, Oakbrook Terrace,  and Elmhurst. Their district joins Community Consolidated District 93 as the second district in DuPage County to provide food scrap collection across all of their schools. Their efforts will help us reach the national goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030 as set by the US Food Waste Reduction Goal. Way to go!

Students at Schafer Elementary School sort their waste, tapping food scraps into a bin for composting.