ABOUT
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Cafeteria Culture (CafCu) is an environmental education organization working creatively with youth to achieve equitable zero waste, climate-smart school communities, and a plastic free biosphere.
Our youth programs merge citizen science and civic action with media and the arts. Students in our programs, overwhelmingly from lower-income communities of color, provide an urgently needed voice to the environmental movement by debating issues, collecting local data, designing and leading mini-pilots that can be scaled-up, educating policy makers, and taking on leadership and advocacy roles to accelerate solutions that address environmental justice and the plastic pollution/climate crises.
Founded in 2009 as Styrofoam Out of Schools, Cafeteria Culture (CafCu), catalyzed the complete elimination of plastic styrofoam trays from all NYC public schools and nine other large U.S. school districts, resulting in half a billion styrofoam trays diverted from landfills, incinerators and student meals annually. Building upon this victory, we continue to pilot solutions in partnership with New York City students and staff to rid public school cafeterias of all the remaining single-use plastic. CafCu's award winning documentary, Microplastic Madness (2019), screened in 37 countries, is sparking youth-led action for a plastic free future with schools as hubs for change. (host a screening of Microplastic Madness). |
Click here to make a tax deductible donation
If you prefer to make a donation by check, please mail your check to: Cafeteria Culture c/o Fund for the City of New York 121 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor New York, NY 10013- 1590 Attention: Fahmida Alam (Please write "Cafeteria Culture" in the memo line.) |
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Students in our programs learn 21st Century skills, including of collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, and participatory democracy, then engage local, national, and international audiences with their creative and informed youth-made messages and videos.
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PS15 K 5th graders workshop built masks and wrote skits to engage their community on plastic litter and TRASH FREE WATERS
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VISION We envision a zero waste future where landfill and incinerator garbage as we know it no longer exists; where post consumption waste from food to packaging is drastically reduced and what remains benefits our schools, communities, and the environment. Since 2012, our unique “ARTS+ACTION Zero Waste School” program has been key to our work and success. We have taught the program as a demonstration project to over 6,000 pre K-12th grade students from 14 NYC schools, located primarily in low income communities of color. We teach the "why" before the "how,” then empower students with hands-on leadership roles as Cafeteria Rangers.
The parallel program component is an interdisciplinary "Make Change Messaging" curriculum. Students become the schools’ change-makers, designing arts-based advocacy campaigns to engage communities on the links between garbage, environmental justice, and climate change. These student led campaigns heighten community awareness and interest on the issues of NYC garbage, plastic pollution, climate change, and environmental justice. CafCu's SORT 2 SAVE KIT is a free and easy to use multimedia toolkit for NYC schools - to support the NYC's zero waste goals. More details on our history here -> |
The new compostable plate - now in all 1,800 NYC public schools, as well as in the 5 other Urban School Food Alliance cities: LA, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, and Orlando.
PS 221 Brooklyn, Cafeteria Rangers in action!
PS 34 M - ARTS+ACTION 5th graders with NY City Council Members and environmental leaders speaking on why styrofoam should be banned; NY City Hall, November, 2013.
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Watch all our videos on YouTube here->
PS 20 M - ARTS+ACTION - Make Change Messaging with 2nd grade class, constructing a giant polar bear puppet from used foam trays.
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MS 246 Brooklyn, 8th graders interviewing neighbors about litter and environmental justice, East Flatbush, 2014.
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PS 34 M 5th graders celebrating the end of NYC school polystyrene era and NYC's zero waste goals, Union Square, June 2015
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Awards
UL Innovative Education Award
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Environmental Quality Award
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NYC Green Festival Community Award
1st place!
Cafeteria Culture accepting the 1st place award at the NYC Green Festival, Jacob Javits Center, April 2015.