Adult and youth staff researched ways to improve and expand the ways they can use compost at their neighborhood gardens. The program provides youth with employment and leadership opportunities on the West Side in St. Paul and Lyndale and Powderhorn neighborhoods in Minneapolis. 100 youth were engaged in learning about composting through a workshop and field trip and subsequently running the garden compost systems all summer. Food from the gardens' daily lunch program that was previously thrown away was composted in the new systems, the quality of the garden beds was improved, and twice as much compost was created.
500 visitors to the gardens were given tours that included a discussion of the new composting systems. These were visitors during Harvest Days as well as volunteer crews who were taught about composting through hands-on experience.
Composting and food waste reduction has become an integral part of how the gardens are run and what is taught to the youth in the program. Youth also teach others about composting when visitors come to the site. The youth who were previously not interested in composting now "call each other out" when peers are caught not properly disposing their waste.