Background

Leadership Santa Barbara County (LSBC) is a non-profit issue-oriented leadership development program that offers its members a working knowledge of current issues affecting our community. LSBC has graduated over 400 members who continue to be actively involved in maintaining our quality of life and leading our county into the future.

Each year the class chooses a community service project where we can give back to the community. This year, the class selected a Composting project for Laguna Cottage for Seniors located at 803 Laguna Street, Santa Barbara.

Laguna Cottages for Seniors has been providing quality housing to low-income seniors since 1953.  The 57 residents of Laguna Cottages are aged 62 to 94 with the minimum age 62 years.  Monthly rent is just 27% of a resident’s monthly income, which allows the residents to have a better quality of life on their limited incomes. Over the last three years Laguna Cottages for Seniors has become more environmentally conscious and participated in several major retrofits to conserve energy, and would like to continue to reduce its impacts and save trash disposal costs by starting a green waste composting program on site. Currently, limited staff resources would not allow Laguna Cottages to develop such a program.

Both LSBC and Laguna Cottages are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations.

Goals

This year’s community service project is a green waste and food scrap composting project in accordance with Laguna Cottages’ “Big Dream” of environmental responsibility. Our goal is to create a rich, local source of compost for the residents of Laguna Cottages that they will be able to use in their flower beds and vegetable gardens to grow organic fruits and vegetables. Another goal of the project is to reduce the amount of green waste and food scraps entering the local landfill, creating a positive environmental impact and reducing trash disposal costs for the campus.

Project Description

The Project includes: 1) design and build of a 3-bin green waste composting facility at Laguna Cottages, 2) design and build four worm (vermiculture) bins for the residents’ food scraps, 3) provide access to kitchen composting bins, 4) provide training and educational material to the residents, and 5) develop a plan to maintain a sustainable composting program that involves minimum staff time.