By Staff Writer
Reprinted from the West Side Leader and Akron.com July 27, 2017
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| Photos courtesy of Summit ReWorks |
GREATER AKRON — Summit ReWorks this spring provided community gardens with food scrap compost through its Grow Green Compost Giveaway. The program invited community gardens officials to enter a contest to be selected to receive 8 cubic yard truckload of compost, with winning entries selected through a random drawing.
“The Grow Green initiative helps raise awareness of ReWorks’ efforts to divert food waste from local landfills by providing compost made from food scraps to community gardens,” said Marcie Kress, ReWorks executive director. “One of the many benefits of this initiative is that we improve soil quality while reducing what goes into landfills.”
ReWorks officials added the compost for the Grow Green Compost Giveaway was purchased from Paradise Composting Co., an Ohio EPA licensed facility that composts food waste.
Compost recipients included the Cuyahoga Falls Community Garden located in Keyser Park, shown above. Eden’s Blessing Community Garden, located on Stadelman Avenue in West Akron, also received compost. Pictured above left is Dave Daly, of Let’s Grow Akron, placing compost into the garden. Other recipients included NoHo/Akron Sustainer Community Garden, located at Cascade Lofts on North Howard Street in North Akron; Community Peace Garden in Akron, located at the corner of Princeton and Russell streets in South Akron; Stow Municipal Courthouse Community Garden, located on Courthouse Drive; and the Lakemore Community Garden, located at the corner of Park and Short streets. Some of the community gardens share the produce grown with area food banks and pantries and other organizations.
ReWorks, Summit County’s solid waste management authority, provides solutions and leadership to empower Summit County communities, institutions and businesses to develop and utilize environmentally sound, cost-effective recycling and waste management strategies, according to organization officials. For more information, visit summitreworks.org.