SunnyCompost Invites YOU to its 4th Annual Open House!

SunnyCompost (@SunnyCompost on Twitter)

invites you to its 4th Annual Open House 

on Sunday, November 15, 2015

from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. 

Help SunnyCompost celebrate Autumn. Bring your:

food scraps, 

leaves, 

&

  pumpkins! 

·         Tour the composting site located at beautiful Sunnyside Community Garden at 50th Street and Barnett Avenue in Sunnyside. 
·         Join us and meet your neighbors and fellow composters. 
·         Learn about composting - Beginners Workshop at 1:30
·         Hands on activities - chopping, sifting, and much much more!
·         Bring your pumpkins for smashing!
·         Bring your bagged leaves for mulching (aka Project Leaf Drop!)
·         Bring food scraps for composting!
·         Take a sample of finished compost!

Please stop by!

We'll have refreshments (compostable)!

Can't wait to see you!!

 (If the weather doesn't cooperate, we will reschedule. For updates,

please follow us on Twitter @SunnyCompost or go to our website, http://www.sunnycompost.org/.)

November 1st: New Winter Drop-off Hours: 2:00 to 4:00

Hello Compost Friends!

Beginning Sunday, November 1st, our drop-off hours will be between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. through the end of February.

Visit http://www.sunnycompost.org/home for more details of our food scrap drop-off program.

Thank you for being part of our Compost Community.

Thank you to our amazing volunteers who give their time freely, especially:

• Soja, Ken, and Deena for helping out on our workday as we prepare for the winter.
• Walter for sawing up a huge fallen branch.
• New volunteers Elizabeth, Benjamin, and Eileen. We couldn't do this without you!
• Maddy for providing her annual workshop for students at PS1.
• Kanka, Teresa, Lora, Sharon, Maddy, and Deena for consistent chopping & sifting throughout the year
• Hope who made our signage and who has since moved on.
• Soja for putting our bin out each week and keeping a watchful eye during the week.
• Gardeners who help us out, donate food scraps and moral support!
• And extra special thanks to one of our founding volunteers, Alvin, who has moved on. You added so much to our group, Alvin, from t-shirt design to building bins to helping our site stay beautiful (and so much more.) Alvin and William made our awesome new sifter.  Your contributions are invaluable.

Join us! Our website has a sign-up page to volunteer. 

Thanks and see you in the garden.

Remembering our Friend

A part of the Master Composter course I took back in 2012, I tabled at the Sunnyside CSA to gauge interest in my idea of conducting worm bin workshops. Then I met Angela. She told me how much she missed being able to divert her food scraps from the landfill by bringing them to the Sunnyside Community Garden. The 24/7 drop-off had ended around March and she really missed it. We talked for awhile and a few other CSA members mentioned their desire to reinvigorate the drop-off program over at the community garden.

Angela's passion made an impression on me. So as the summer went on, my idea to conduct worm bin workshops continued but soon I was working with Queens compost gurus at NYC Compost Project at Queens Botanical Garden and Build It Green! Compost to organize a community meeting about reinvigorating the Sunnyside community garden drop-off compost program.

Three years later and dropping off food scraps at SunnyCompost is a routine Sunday activity for many of our neighbors. Angela was a regular composter, usually making her way down 50th Street after 4:00. We'd see her and greet her at the gate to help her carry her bags of scraps. We loved Angela because she believed in and appreciated us. When she wasn't able to bring over her scraps herself, Angela had her own crew ready to bring them over. She would tell them not to be late to drop-off because we're volunteers and she appreciated our giving of our time and didn't want us to have to work too late.

Angela cared about us, bringing us delicious baked goods for our Open House events.  On the last Sunday in August, Angela enjoyed our 'Snacks and Sifting' event by visiting with neighbors and newcomers. I sat with her for awhile as she relayed her recipe for homemade hummus. Angela told a favorite story about her cat that was prescribed Paxil and one about her excellent ability to spell.  Personally, she gave me advice that day to pass on to my mother about how physical therapy can be helpful.

SunnyCompost exists because of Angela's impassioned plea to rejuvenate the drop-off program. There are so many stories and memories to share. We love her and will miss her dearly.

Happenings

Life is never dull at Sunny Compost!

Back in June, Maddie gave a workshop to students from PS 11. This is the third year in a row she's provided these hands on "in-the-garden" workshops. Many thanks to Jeremy from the NYC Compost Project hosted by Queens Botanical Garden for helping out!

We also had a Snacks & Sifting Sunday in August where some of our compost heroes put our beautiful sifter to use.

Recap of Queens Bike Compost Tour

One of our compost comrades, Sashti from 462 Halsey Community Garden, wrote a beautiful recap of the Queens Compost Bike Tour. Check it out here.

New Sifter! Check it out!

Thanks to Alvin and William for  their innovation and determination!

Queens Compost Bike Tour

 Smiling Hogshead Ranch and the NYC Compost Project hosted at Queens Botanical Garden  organized a bike tour of six community composting sites in Queens, including Sunny Compost. A big crowd checked out our tumblers and bins and shared in some fruits as they made their way to the other sites.

The tour included stops at:

• Queens Botanical Garden’s site
• St. Marks Church/Farmspot CSA compost site in Jackson Heights
• JH SCRAPS
• Brooklyn Grange
• NYC Compost Project hosted by Build It Green’s compost site at the Queensbridge Baby Park
• Smiling Hogshead Ranch

The last stop included an overview of SHR's six different composting methods being demonstrated. Including the unveiling of their newest addition, ThermoSense, a technologically advanced
compost monitoring system, installed in partnership with We Radiate and
funded by the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board’s CCNYC 2015 Composting
Grant.

Congrats to all who organized this amazing event celebrating community composting in Queens