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Cafeteria Culture Presents at the United Nations

6/17/2016

Cafeteria Culture Executive Director, Debby Lee Cohen (left photo, in center) and Media Director, Atsuko Quirk (bottom photo, waving) were honored to present at the United Nations Headquarters in NYC on Wednesday, June 15th as part of the 17th Meeting of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (ICP-17) - Marine Debris, Plastics and Microplastics.

Our presentation was titled:
Partnering with urban youth on upstream solutions, civic action, media and messaging to reduce plastic marine debris and microplastics.

We were thrilled to be able to share our plastic pollution reduction efforts with the distinguished UN delegates from all over the world - accomplishments made possible by our partnerships with incredible NYC public school students, teachers, school communities, and government agencies that we have worked with on reducing plastic litter in NYC!

"The Journey of Plastic Litter"- created by 8th grade students! First in our new #TrashFreeWaters video series

6/11/2016

Brooklyn 8th grade students have been working hard behind the scenes on The Journey of Plastic Litter. They studied the issues, storyboarded their concepts, created artwork for animation, and did a fabulous job editing with charming sound effects!

As part of Cafeteria Culture's Youth Arts + Media for Trash Free Waters Program at MS246 Walt Whitman, in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, students from class 804 created a series of short documentary videos on the local and global issues of plastic marine pollution.

Watch the Journey of Plastic Litter, the first in the series, and subscribe to our YouTube Channel, CafCu Media! We will be posting new #TrashFreeWaters videos all month long. These shorts with their fresh youth-POV are not to be missed!

Get inspired then, take action for #TrashFreeWaters. Action Alert on the NYC #BYObag bill here->
Thank you for watching and sharing!

Cafeteria Culture's YOUTH ARTS + MEDIA for TRASH FREE WATERS School Program (2016) has been generously funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2, Sustainable Materials Management Section, CASD. Cafeteria Culture is most appreciative of additional support via our UL Innovative Education Award (2015) and The Fund for the City of New York.

NYC votes YES on Intro 209-A, the bag fee bill, 28 - 20! Thank you NYC Council Members, youth advocates, and the many organizations who worked together to win this victory!

5/5/2016

NYC Council passed the #BYObag bill, 28-20!
We are so very proud of our CafCu students in grades 3-8, who creatively advocated for this bill and helped to achieve this landmark environmental victory!

Students from our partner schools, MS246 Walt Whitman, NEST+m, Tompkins Sqaure Middle School, and the Earth School, along with students from the Hewitt School, spoke up at City Hall, asking City Council members to pass NYC's Plastic Bag Bill! Let's get this bill passed before Earth Day! (NYC, April 13, 2016

read
A HUGE THANK YOU to City Councilman Brad Lander and Councilwoman Margaret Chin, co-sponsors of the bag bill - INTRO 209A. Thank you to Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, who listened to the informed bag bill opinions of 5th graders from 3 schools in her district during CafCu's roundtable meeting in January, 2015.

Thank you to all of partner teachers and principals, who worked with us on the bag bill curriculum, allowing students to debate this important issue.

Thank you to our donors, volunteers, and funders!

And thank you to Jennie Romer and to all the partner organizations who worked together to get this landmark bill passed, including Citizens Committee for NYC, National Resource Defense Council NYC, New York League of Conservation Voters, BagItNYC.org, NY/NJ BayKeepers, and the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board. Thank you Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Public Advocate Letitia James for your support!

UPDATE
The plastic bag industry is not giving up and we need you to take action!
More on NYC's bag bill here ->

Watch this Video from 26 inspiring young filmmakers - #SaveACritter

4/16/2016

Watch our latest co-created video and get inspired to take action for a TRASH FREE NYC and world! Then share this video with the hashtag #SaveACritter.

Cafeteria Culture is teaching our unique curriculum, YOUTH MEDIA + ARTS for TRASH FREE WATERS, to rising 8th grade filmmakers at MS246 Walt Whitman in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.

We are empowering students with cameras and storytelling skills to think critically about real world environmental problems and to instigate their own Trash Free Waters messaging for their communities and for the entire world! Students are debating, asking questions, and telling their own powerful stories about how street litter becomes toxic marine pollution.
Help us by sharing this video! Use #SaveACritter today, tomorrow and all week long!

Watch the video on Vimeo here.

"SORT2save cheer!" - our latest music video for teaching K-6 students how to recycle and compost in the cafeteria

11/3/2015

Drum roll please. The first SORT2save how-to video is here! Create a culture of zero waste in your cafeteria while making change fun - for everyone!

The SORT2save cheer! is a fun and easy way to teach students and staff how to correctly sort food scraps and packaging for a zero waste, healthy future.  Teachers, share with your students. Students, share with your teachers. Share it with everyone!

NEXT UP in the SORT2save (S2s) series:
CAFETERIA RANGERS - YOUR SCHOOL CAN DO IT!

SIGN UP HERE to receive a downloadable PDF of the SORT2save cheer!  lyrics and be the first to know when the next video in the S2s series is posted.

At school? Watch the SORT2save cheer!  video on Vimeo here ->.
Watch the SORT2save cheer! video on YouTube here ->.

We won a UL Innovative Education Award to Advance Environmental and Stem Education!

9/7/2015

We are thrilled to announce that Cafeteria Culture was selected as a winner of the inaugural UL Innovative Education Award! As a tier 2 winner, we received a $50,000 ward from UL (Underwriters Laboratories) and NAAEE (North America Association for Environmental Education) to expand our ARTS+ACTION Program!!! We'll get to work closely with the incredible UL team and fellow grantees to make an even bigger impact in NYC schools and beyond!!

A HUGE THANK YOU to UL and NAAEE!
The UL Innovative Education Award (ULIEA) is the first-of-its-kind initiative designed to invest in environmental and STEM education, sustainable communities, and youth empowerment and was open to nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and Canada that serve to motivate K-12 students. Read more about the five winning organizations here ->.

We could not have won this award without the support of our amazing partners and supporters!

TALKING WASTE TRANSFER - Youth Impact Media

3/16/2015

Waste Transfer Stations

Are you aware that everything you "throw away" will be negatively impacting some community along the journey to a waste transfer station, landfill or incinerator?
Most NYC residents never think about this, unless, of course, garbage is being dumped in one's own "backyard." So why should you care?
Watch this short video, created by 8th graders in our program, and find out!

There is not a single NYC community that wants hundreds of garbage filled, carbon spewing trucks driving through it's streets. NYC is close to spending $1 BILLION on improving NYC garbage transfer yet, we spend only a tiny fraction of that amount on innovating REDUCE EDUCATION! (more ->)

"SORTIN' IT OUT" - the music video ( a work in progress)

8/29/2014

Sortin’ It Out - the music video (a work in progress) from Atsuko Quirk on Vimeo.

Please DONATE here to help us complete this video and more like it!
Jack Johnson's charity will double your donation! (thru September 1st- details here)

Now is the perfect time for creating innovative strategies to engage NYC youth on the "why" and "how" of sorting recyclables and compostables - and the public school cafeteria is an ideal place to start! With NYC's recent expansion of recycling and composting, students and staff urgently need fresh and engaging tools to reduce school trash. Why not make change fun?

Watch our new music video, "Sortin' It Out" (a work in progress), co-created with the fabulous students and staff from MS 246 Walt Whitman in Brooklyn.

We need your help to complete "Sortin' It Out" and more edu-taining videos, all to be included in our multi-media Toolkit for School Cafeteria Waste Reduction.

Please make your tax-deductible DONATION now. Together, we can inspire school communities to reduce, recycle, and compost for a zero-waste, healthy future.

WHY NOW?
This fall, NYC will be expanding the organics (aka compost) collection to include 700 or, roughly 40% of all NYC schools, across 3 boroughs! read more

THE CHALLENGE
It is particularly challenging for principals to allocate limited staff time towards initiating and maintaining new cafeteria procedure. Contaminated bins are all too common. Students and staff need inspiration!

SCHOOLS NEED TOOLS!
Our school programs empower students as leaders in the cafeteria, who oversee all recylcing, composting and proper sorting. "Sortin' It Out" - the music video is just the lead-in! We are close to completing more great videos, as part of our on-line TOOLKIT.

COST of our THROW AWAY CULTURE
NYC taxpayers spend $330 million per year to export garbage in gas sucking, carbon spewing trucks, that crisscross the city, first to waste transfer stations located primarily in low-income minority neighborhoods, then to out of state landfills and incinerators.

CLIMATE CONNECTION
The entire trash cycle contributes carbon and methane emissions to global warming. While the city is due to spend millions on constructing new waste transfer stations, only a small fraction of NYC tax dollars are spent on recycling and climate education.

CLIMATE LITERACY
Cafeteria Culture has been piloting cutting edge, interdisciplinary curriculum via our school programs. We believe that all NYC students, regardless of resources, should be climate literate!

CafCu's Edu-tainment media - made with and for NYC youth - can revolutionize the city's recycling and composting communication, while empowering minority youth as partners in creating climate-smart messaging.

Recording vocals - MS 246 students and Atsuko Quirk, CafCu Media Director.

CO-CREATING WITH YOUTH!
Youth drive trends, fearlessly pushing the limits of e-culture. CafCu's school programs are giving positive notice to youth as trend setters in a sustainability context and NYC is benefiting!

WHY CAFETERIA CULTURE?
Our team collaboratively catalyzed Trayless Tuesday citywide and more recently, new policies that will imminently rid all of NYC schools, along with the 5 largest US school districts, of 3 MILLION toxic and polluting styrene foam trays per day!

We have spent thousands of hours in school cafeterias across the city, collaboratively innovating, teaching, observing, and piloting new methods. We are the NYC school cafeteria waste reduction innovators!

CafCu gratefully acknowledges the generous support from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 2 for funding our ARTS+ACTION program at MS 246 Walt Whitman. Learn more about our innovative, interdisciplinary school programshere.
See the US EPA's Student's Guide to Global Climate Change here.

Curbside Compost Messaging

8/10/2014

Painted organics bins

PS 167 Painted Organics Tote

Youth artists create moving-messages
to promote composting

We love the challenge of solving problems, especially when we are co-creating solutions with kids!

Last spring, we piloted our first After School ARTS+ACTION program at PS 167 The Parkway School (Crown Heights, Brooklyn). The school's fabulous eco-artists learned the "why" and the "how" of recycling & composting, then were delighted to paint their original eco-messages right onto the school's compost totes (aka, bins with wheels). The boring brown totes were transformed with bold student designs. Wheeled to the curbside each afternoon, the art and messages are shared with the neighboring community.

But there's more to painting totes than beautifying the curbside, sharing eco-messages, and taking kids' art to the streets.

The NYC School Organics (composting) Program recently expanded from 60 schools to over 400, with plans to accommodate all 1,800 public schools. The cafeteria lunch period, however, is full of challenges for achieving proper sorting and ensuring program success. Due to limited cafeteria staff, few educational components, and lack of kid appealing signage and incentives, the end-of-lunch contents of the compost totes often look identical to that of the trash bins.

The bright paintings on the totes help students and staff to take notice, reminding everyone to correctly sort food scraps and organics.

Additionally, curbside theft of these new totes is a growing problem. By transforming the totes with not-to-be-missed bright artwork, we hope to discourage thieves from wheeling them off of school property.

Our team has spent thousands of hours teaching students and working with school staff on garbage reduction initiatives. We are constantly piloting new ways of engaging entire school communities, improving cafeteria recycling, composting, & sorting procedures, and optimizing design. We are also testing new methods of co-creating media & messaging with youth on the environmental injustice of NYC’s 11,000 tons of school and home garbage generated daily and its inextricable link to climate change.

A HUGE THANKS to AWESOME FOUNDATION NYC and NYC City Councilmember (now NYC Public Advocate) Letitia James, for supporting this project.

Learn more about our ARTS+ACTION School Program.

Help us to share more high quality programming with undeserved schools and communities. PLEASE DONATE!

Youth-made Media at MS 246 - CafCu May News

5/18/2014

"I never thought that learning about garbage would be so interesting!"

When one of our eighth grade students at MS 246 turned to me with a huge smile and said this, I knew our Video Journalism curriculum was right on target. We are not only training students to be leaders in the cafeteria, we are teaching media production to teens so they can tell their own powerful stories about NYC’s garbage plight!

Right now, we urgently need your support to help students complete their timely videos and share them with thousands of youth across NYC. These student movies are shedding light on how the seemingly meaningless act of throwing something away is negatively impacting low income communities in NYC and beyond.

We are dedicated to piloting new curriculum that will inspire youth to take charge of their future and to take action to reduce Green House Gas emissions. Your generous gift will help us to bring more ARTS+ACTION environmental education to underserved NYC schools.

Thank you for helping us to achieve zero waste cafeterias and climate-smart public school communities.

Cafeteria Culture sincerely thanks:

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for generously funding our ARTS+ACTION Cafeteria Waste Reduction Program at MS 246!
The entire MS 246 community for partnering with us.
Just Add Water for camera donations!
All of our generous donors who support our work in NYC schools!

Header Photos: Cafeteria Culture's Video Journalism workshop - students from Mr. Thornhill's ELA class at MS 246 Walt Whitman Middle School, Brooklyn, NY; Top Left and Right - students interviewing Flatbush residents about air quality and litter; Bottom Right - Atsuko Quirk, Cafeteria Culture Media Director, teaching camera technique to class 804.

Cafeteria Culture (CafCu) is a Project of The Fund for the City of New York, a charitable organization.
Founded in 2009 as Styrofoam Out of Schools.
Donations to Cafeteria Culture are eligible for charitable deductions under section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code.
Cafeteria Culture is a vendor of New York City Department of Education via Fund for the City of New York

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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.
Copyright © 2018 Cafeteria Culture