District 196 Community Education has received funding directly from Dakota County to implement two projects. The first project, "Waste Reduction Analysis Process" (WRAP) involved school district students analyzing the current status of local business waste production, providing feedback for improvement, and assessing the impact of authentic reduction efforts. The students, supervised by the 196 Business Partnership Team, develop environmental expertise and delivered WRAP services to five to seven local businesses.
In the second project, District 196 Community Education achieved three goals through community education classes and print media. The goals include: expose 100,000+ district residents to positive messages to reinforce the value to our community of reducing waste; help 60 adults become family and community role models by simplifying life to reduce waste and shifting use of harmful chemicals to safer alternatives; and help 25 students (k-12) become environmental "agents of change" by learning the specifics of composting and building their first compost bin for use at home.