This year we celebrate our 5-year anniversary as the Earth Matter Compost Learning Center. Our new location at the Governors Island Urban Farm has been a dream come true! Let’s take a look at some of the highlights from the past five years:
- 2009: City of Water Day marked our very first Earth Matter event, where we collected food scraps from the over 10,000 event attendees.
- 2010: We established a partnership permit with the Trust for Governors Island. We opened our Compost Learning Center at Picnic Point for
- visitors and processing food scraps collected from the island.
- 2011: We introduced chicken composting to our operations.
- 2012: We expanded our animal composting by fostering 2 kid goats for the season. We joined the NYC Compost Project as a Local Organics Recovery Program pilot site.
- 2013: We relocated our Center to the South Battery. We expanded our processing of farmers market neighbor food scraps, processing over 500,000 lbs of organics.
- 2014: Our windrows have been moved north and our 80 chickens, 2 rabbits and 2 kid goats, have moved south and, once again, we are reunited at the new Compost Learning Center! And it feels SOOOO good!
In May 2014, with the help of many friends, volunteers, partner organizations, groups, visitors, the NYC Compost Project and The Trust for Governors Island, we moved to our new space at the Governors Island Urban Farm, adjacent to the Play Oval. We have established Soil Start Farm, whose goal is to demonstrate the “lasagna composting technique” of building up new compost/soil blends as a method for urban gardeners to grow healthy plants.
Come and visit us at our new location or, better yet, PARTICIPATE! We have opportunities for people of all ages and abilities.