An organization that has expanded over the past two years from its roots in Grandview Heights to about a dozen central Ohio communities gives youths leadership roles in helping residents convert the food they don’t eat into compost material instead of landfill refuse. Kids that Compost was founded in 2019 by Mona Barber, a Grandview resident whose family regularly would take the compost material generated at home to a local farmers market for disposal.
Kids that Compost looks to harness the passion and energy youths bring to a project they care about, she said. The environment is an issue on the minds of a lot of children, and Kids that Compost empowers youngsters to help make a difference, Barber said. “They can be a leader in their home, in their school and in their community on this issue,” she said.
In summer 2019, Barber said she broached city officials with the idea of whether Grandview could start a curbside food-waste recycling program similar to one operated in Bexley. “It’s quite an endeavor, and I realized it would take a really long time to get the buy-in to get a community-wide program off the ground,” she said.
But Barber wanted to encourage the residents in her town to consider composting, so she recruited some young people to help her conduct a door-to-door effort to talk to neighbors and gauge their interest in participating in a curbside collection program.