Performing Department
Food Services Division
Non Technical Summary
Los Angeles Unified School District Food Services (LAUSD), in collaboration with two nonprofit organizations, the Garden School Foundation (GSF) and Crop Swap LA (CSLA), will engage educators, administrators, school district partners, students, and their families to address food waste on school campuses and gaps in climate literacy among teachers, staff, and administrators.Currently, LA Unified school campuses generate a significant amount of food waste that ends up in municipal landfills, with studentsthrowing away 25% to 50% of the food they have selected.To address this pressing environmental issue, LAUSD released the Expanded Recycling initiative in 2017, which aimed to boost landfill diversion of food waste up to 70% and included elements such as mealtime sorting, organics recycling and composting, and specialized training for faculty and administrators. This program has been successful but has fallen short of key goals, largely due to uneven program uptake and implementation, particularly in schools in historically underserved communities. To address these gaps, LAUSD will partner with GSF and CSLA to expand GSF's successful composting and food waste reduction program, Cafeteria to Compost, to reach 8 new Title I school sites. In addition to expanding Cafeteria to Compost, the project partners will collaboratively develop best practices for food recovery, diversion, and redistribution to be scaled across the District.At the eight new sites, Cafeteria to Compost staff will teach students and their families the ins and outs of composting as well as the larger environmental impact of food waste and waste prevention efforts. Throughout the project, students will sort and divert their food waste daily in the cafeteria. These in-cafeteria practices will be supplemented with grade-specific composting curriculum and garden classes where students will generate nutrient-rich compost. The resulting compost will be utilized for on-campus garden programs and distributed to Los Angeles' urban growers and community gardens. Data and best practices from the eight program sites will ultimately be used to scale the Districts' efforts in reducing food waste, increasing food donation programs, ensuring proper separation of food waste, and increasing parent and community partnerships.In addition to reducing student food waste, our project will provide food relief to our largely food-insecure school communities by establishing school-site distributions of salvaged cafeteria food from the Share Table. To engage the broader community, GSF and CSLA will host free educational workshops as well as establish Community Composting Hubs. We will also prioritize hiring school community members, such as Cafeteria to Compost staff, to create economic opportunities in underserved communities. By recognizing that food justice, poverty, health, and education are deeply linked, our project creates lasting change in the communities we serve through the multipronged approach of providing education, food relief, economic opportunity, and community engagement, resources historically lacking in low-income neighborhoods where our project will operate.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
2.0 Goals and Objectives. LAUSD has the immediate, overarching goal of scaling a successful food waste recovery and redistribution program to eight high-need schools in its District. Progress will be tracked throughout the project by a series of milestones and objectives:Reduce and prevent food waste on campus. Reduce the amount of food waste headed to municipal landfills by 76,000 lbs. a year across 8 LAUSD schools.Increase climate literacy through garden-based science education and hands-on composting. By increasing education about food waste prevention and climate literacy for 2,755 students, 133 teachers, campus administration, and Food Services staff, we aim to promote a culture of sustainability and increase buy-in for campus-based composting initiatives. This includes in-classroom programming, events, and workshops.Educate the school community about food waste prevention, food recovery, and on-campus composting solutions. Work with district leadership and key Divisions to educate district staff on grant goals and objectives to gain districtwide support for on-campus waste reduction and composting solutions. Redistribute 20,000 lbs of food to community members.Create Community Composting Hubs. Engage with the public and distribute compost to community members, emphasizing urban farmers, community gardens, and other school green spaces. Produce and distribute 50,000 lbs. of compost annually.Develop and implement a Food Waste Reduction Plan to serve as the district's model at all school sites. The eight C2C schools will serve as pilot schools to reduce school food waste by enhancing educational outreach, establishing cafeteria Share Tables, and facilitating on-site food donation programs.These activities are expected to develop a scalable model to reduce cafeteria food waste that can expand to all LAUSD campuses. This project represents a crucial opportunity to accelerate equitable, student-oriented approaches to reducing and preventing food waste and increase climate literacy among students and school stakeholders.Goal: Reduce and prevent food waste on campus. The project expands GSF's existing Cafeteria to Compost (C2C) Program at five LAUSD elementary school sites to six additional LAUSD elementary school sites and two high school sites. Following the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Wasted Food Scale3, this program utilizes different pathways for reducing wasted food, arranged in order of priority:Food Waste Prevention: C2C emphasizes food waste prevention by monitoring food consumption and waste patterns. The program aims to achieve high rates of source reduction through several avenues, including:Educating students about USDA's Offer vs. Serve (OVS) Guidelines. LAUSD school lunches align with the USDA's National School Lunch Program. Many students misunderstand USDA reimbursable meal guidelines, which leads to food waste. The project will develop and pilot educational and marketing materials to empower students to make informed food choices and prevent food waste. These materials and resources will become part of the Food Waste Reduction Plan for all LAUSD schools.Perform Waste Audit. C2C staff will collect and analyze data about cafeteria food waste, trends, and student behavior. The project will track the amount of food students place on Share Tables and scrap into green and brown waste bins. The anticipated goal of gathering and analyzing this data is to gain a global insight into student preferences and behaviors that allow LAUSD Food Services personnel to make more informed decisions about menu, marketing, and nutrition education.Food Recovery. After taking initial steps to adjust student behavior, C2C emphasizes food recovery and distribution. The C2C approach to food recovery involves two simple collaborative strategies:Share Tables. Share Tables will be implemented in all school cafeterias to reduce food waste on campus. The C2C schools will pilot the Share Table carts to develop best practices, marketing, and educational materials.Redistribution. C2C has established after-school food redistribution operations. GSF and CSLA, in coordination with LAUSD, will pilot a Food Donation Program to allow non-C2C schools with active California State PTA organizations to receive and distribute donated food items after school.On-Campus Composting. The C2C program establishes on-site campus composting operations. For the program's education and training goals, students will be instructed to separate unwanted food items into a two-tiered waste separation system: green bins for vegetables/fruits/grain-based items and brown bins for meat and dairy products. Green bin items will be composted on-site, modeling a closed-loop food system with students participating in the composting process from beginning to end. Students observe the full composting process 3x per school year.Off-site Green Bin Composting: Animal products like meat are unsuitable for C2C's on-campus composting infrastructure and will be diverted to the municipal green dumpster for composting by the municipal hauler. By modeling this process, we increase the likelihood that students will continue sorting their food at home.Goal: Increase climate literacy through garden-based science education and composting. Hands-on composting activities are supplemented with an in-classroom educational component, including two 60-minute lessons per school year:Composting 101 introduces LAUSD teachers and students to the C2C program, including the benefits of composting on the environment, how in-cafeteria food sorting works, their role in the composting process, and how the Share Table operates.All Hands on Deck explores the negative impact of food waste. Students learn how their actions impact climate change. Students will create a wall poster to track and review the number of pounds of food waste they collectively diverted at their school.Goal: Educate the school community about food waste prevention, food recovery, and on-campus composting solutions. An interdisciplinary team of educators, administrators, and district partners will further ensure students and school personnel are educated and trained on managing food waste. The project will develop educational materials and host regular in-person training for school food services staff about the true cost of food waste, along with on-campus composting workshops for teachers, families, and community members.Goal: Create Community Composting Hubs. Creating a Community Compost Hub will begin once the C2C program is firmly established. Local community members can donate brown and green waste, gain education and technical assistance for at-home composting, and receive finished compost. Targeted outreach to Los Angeles' urban growing community, community gardens, and school garden programs will be a key focus. Project Partners will host two workshops per school year (2025-26 and 2026-27) for school families and community members that explain the benefits ofcomposting and how to start a compost system at home. These workshops create a knowledgeable and supportive network, ensuring that the lessons learned at school are reinforced at home. Parent workshops will be supplemented by four Community Compost Events per school year.2.5 Broader Impacts. This project addresses food waste by physically reducing waste on school campuses and establishing lasting partnerships that allow a multi-pronged approach to waste reduction. Through this partnership, increased data points will be utilized for effective decision-making. The increase in program sites will assist LAUSD, CSLA, and GSF in developing a comprehensive Food Waste Reduction Plan for all schools, including a multifaceted approach that includes food waste education, establishing Share Table carts and waste separation stations, and facilitating food donations to the community after school.
Project Methods
This project uses equitable, justice-oriented approaches to education, food waste prevention, and food relief by utilizing school gardens, the most natural place to reach high-needs youth and their families. These activities will result in increasing educational and health outcomes of youth in historically underserved communities while providing them with the skills and education necessary to grow and cook nutritious foods, lead healthy lives into adulthood, and engage in action to combat the climate crisis. Our project will be conducted through a collaboration between LAUSD and the project's implementing partners, Garden School Foundation (CSF) and Crop Swap LA (CSLA).This project will expand GSF's existing Cafeteria to Compost (C2C) to the eight project school site locations listed in the project proposal and reduce municipal waste while generating quality compost, bringing anticipated ancillary benefits to onsite soil quality along with local economic development opportunities. Project efforts will be conducted by LAUSD, GSF, and CSLA, as summarized below:The project will reduce and prevent food waste on campus by expanding the C2C program to 6 additional LAUSD elementary school sites and 2 high school sites. Program expansion will be implemented by GSF and CSLA and will achieve high rates of source reduction through various approaches, including educating students about USDA's Offer vs. Serve (OVS) guidelines; performing a waste audit by collecting and analyzing data about cafeteria food trends for LAUSD Food Services that will support efforts to create more effective menus, reduce portion sizes, and make more informed food purchases; operating on-campus Food Recovery efforts, including a Share Table and after-school Food Redistribution for school community members; and perhaps most importantly, implementing and overseeing on-campus composting of all food scraps generated during meal times. C2C staff will likewise educate students and the broader school community about off-site Green Bin Composting for animal products and other items that cannot be composted on-site.The project will increase climate literacy through garden-based science education and composting. The C2C program engages students in both the hands-on management of food leftovers in the cafeteria and in the composting process, including sorting, maintaining hot piles, and using finished compost to nourish school gardens and green spaces. Hands-on composting activities are supplemented with an in-classroom educational component, including two 60-minute lessons per school year, including Composting 101 and All Hands on Deck. C2C curriculum is taught by C2C staff at each site.GSF and CSLA will collaborate with LAUSD to educate the broader school community about food waste prevention, food recovery, and on-campus composting solutions. The project will develop educational materials and host regular in-person training about OVS and the True Cost of Food Waste for school food services staff, along with on-campus composting workshops for school teachers, families, and community members.GSF and CSLA will create and manage Community Composting Hubs to provide public access points on school sites where local community members can donate their food waste from home, gain education and technical assistance for at-home composting, and receive excess finished products.The project will promote environmental justice by serving primarily low-income communities of color in historically disadvantaged areas of Metro Los Angeles. All 8 of the project school sites are Title 1, and the 2,755 students served by the project are people of color. At title 1 schools, experiential learning experiences like the ones C2C provides are historically lacking. Our project bridges the gap by offering students hands-on STEM, sustainability, and social-emotional learning opportunities otherwise lacking at their schools.The project offers green employment opportunities within the 8 historically disadvantaged school neighborhoods. Food waste diversion and composting operations at each school site will be facilitated by one, part-time C2C Staff Member, and GSF and CSLA will prioritize hiring members of the school community.Project Partners will also host 2 workshops per school year (2025-26 and 2026-27) for school families and community members that explain the benefits of composting and how to start a compost system at home. Family workshops will be supplemented by 4 Community Compost Events per school year.Finally, LAUSD Food and Nutrition Services supported by GSF and CSLA will develop a comprehensive Food Waste Reduction Plan for all LAUSD schools that will include a multifaceted approach that includes food waste education and reduction, the establishment of Share Table carts and waste separation stations, and the facilitation of food donations.To evaluate the success of our project, LAUSD will work directly with GSF and CSLA to gather data and create a collaborative reporting framework from which to measure and track the project's various outcomes. C2C staff will collect daily data around food waste prevention and composting to measure the success of on-the-ground operations, as well as conduct semiannual student surveys to track improvements in learning objectives along with annual surveys of families, teachers, and principals to gauge enthusiasm for and effectiveness of the C2C program. The following data points will be the primary metrics used to evaluate the program: 1) Daily: Amount of food waste in pounds diverted from landfills; pounds of food waste recovered via the Share Table; pounds of recovered food redistributed with school community members; number of individuals who receive food items through after-school redistribution. 2) Monthly: pounds of compost created on-site; number of volunteers hosted at community events. 3) Quarterly: the amount of opportunities LAUSD and project partners have created to share results via workshops, tours, and meetings with District and government officials.The C2C manager will meet with C2C staff monthly to review data and prepare monthly reports to share with the District. Project partners will also meet quarterly with Food Services Leadership to discuss reports and the status of the project and review data about cafeteria waste from the District's internal production records. Data from compost operations will be supplemented with qualitative feedback and testimonials from students and the community. The project uses a pre-and-post survey with Kinder and 4th graders administered by C2C staff in August and June of each school year. This survey is designed to gauge improvements in learning objectives related to composting, including measuring students' knowledge of what items can and cannot be composted and scientific concepts related to the decomposition process and soil health. Annual digital surveys will also be conducted with a sampling of teachers and families to assess their experience with the C2C program and evaluate their knowledge of composting and food waste prevention techniques. Project implementers will also meet with school administrators to share data and results and perform a brief survey to provide insight into how school leaders view and experience the C2C program. All surveys are administered by C2C staff and are anonymous.