Please Donate!

Cafeteria Culture has taken the lead on innovating K-12 zero waste, climate education for over a decade.
Our programs are infused with science, data collection, media production, civics and youth-led solutions that lead
​to systemic and institutional change!
​Help us reach more school districts for
Plastic Free Lunch Day USA
April 2023

May 2018 - the first Plastic Free Lunch Day, spearheaded by 56 students in Cafeteria Culture's program at PS 15 in Brooklyn.
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May 2022 - the first NY City-wide Plastic Free Lunch day in 750 elementary schools; students were served lunch without plastic!
Nov 2022 - the first national Plastic Free Lunch day with Dallas, San Diego, Baltimore City, Los Angeles, DeKalb County GA, Philadelphia, NYC, and schools across the US, in partnership with the Urban School Food Alliance
abc7 news:​Students from Red Hook create
​Plastic Free Lunch Day, schools participate nationwide  

Your donation supports our programs in
under-resourced NYC schools and schools across the US.
With schools as hubs for change, students are taking the lead
to reduce single-use plastic from school food service and our communities!
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Fifth graders from PS 188 The Island School interview farmers at the Union Square farmers' market, NYC, Oct 2022

​Your donation to Cafeteria Culture supports:
  • Urgently needed interdisciplinary plastic free/zero waste/climate education with opportunities for students to collect local data, design solutions, and share their stories with key decision makers.
  • PLASTIC FREE LUNCH DAY USA! - support for schools and districts across the country for a plastic free, school food service.
  • FREE screenings and Q+As of our award winning movie, MICROPLASTIC MADNESS, for all under resourced schools.
  • FREE zero waste, climate education resources for all educators!
  • Leading pilots for a zero waste future (including reusable service ware & reduction of wasted food) with students and staff as our partners from public schools that serve lower income communities of color.
  • Conducting detailed cafeteria waste audits with students as our partners.
  • Teaching media production and storytelling and providing a platform for youth of color to share their POV and hyper local stories with data.​
  • Mentoring student activists through our Youth Advocates program -  5th grade through college age students with a focus on environmental justice and the climate emergency.
  • Leading unique cross-cultural programs between youth around the globe for the common goal of stopping global plastic pollution and plastic waste exportation.
  • Producing timely info-briefs that explain the latest scientific research on plastic and chemical harms to human health in terms that are easy to understand.
Cafeteria Culture's award winning movie,
MICROPLASTIC MADNESS has reached audiences
in 35 US states and 45 countries!
​
​The movie is a springboard for youth action,
linking two of the most critical issues of our time,
plastic pollution and the climate crisis.
Your donation makes it possible for us
to share the movie and free educational resources
with schools and communities everywhere!
​
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Click here to make a tax deductible donation
​If you prefer to make a donation by check,
 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.)​
Learn more about MICROPLASTIC MADNESS ->
Your support makes what we do possible!
WHY DONATE TO CAFETERIA CULTURE?
Since 2009, Cafeteria Culture has been:
  1. Transforming environmental education with award winning, interdisciplinary strategies that address the most urgent environmental issues of our times; 
  2. Teaching primarily in schools that serve lower-income communities of color;
  3. Continuously piloting new zero waste methodology and curriculum, and
  4. Leading small scale pilots that can be scaled up (learn about our Styrofoam out of Schools victory)
  5. Sharing our resources - for free - with schools and other NGO's across New York City and the US!

Learn more about our PLASTIC FREE WATERS programs here ->
MISSION
Cafeteria Culture (CafCu) is working creatively with youth to achieve equitable zero waste, and climate-smart school communities and a plastic free biosphere. We teach innovative environmental education that fosters youth-led solutions on critical sustainability issues, merging citizen science, civic action, video production and the arts. Students in our programs, overwhelmingly from lower income communities of color, are providing an urgently needed voice on environmental justice and waste equity (see our YouTube Channel, Cafcu Media (70K subscribers and 34 million views).
In 2021-22, thanks to our generous donors and supporters:
  • Cafeteria Culture led the first national and NY Citywide Plastic Free Lunch Day in partnership with NYC Department of Education Office of Food and Nutrition Services and Office of Sustainability, students and school staff. On May 16, 2022, school lunches were prepared without plastic in over 750 NYC elementary schools!
  • MICROPLASTIC MADNESS reached over 73,000 people in 45 countries. Our award winning movie features 5th graders living in Red Hook, Brooklyn,  a community on the frontline of the Climate Crisis - whose action on plastic pollution morphs into extraordinary leadership and scalable victories.
  • Our Cafeteria Culture team participated in hundreds of Q+A's, answering questions about plastic pollution, youth action, and education and  learning from youth around the globe!
  • Our MICROPLASTIC MADNESS Toolkit - curriculum for a plastic free future - interdisciplinary curriculum has been shared for free as an online resource that aligns with the movie.
  • We piloted new plastic free, environmental justice, climate education in under-resourced NYC schools.
  • Reached 34 MILLION viewers on our YouTube channel, CafCu Media with SCHOOL LUNCH IN JAPAN- It's Not Just About Eating, a documentary short by CafCu Media Director Atsuko Quirk;​
​​

Watch: What Teachers Say About Cafeteria Culture's Creative Environmental Education

Watch "What Teachers Say About Cafeteria Culture's Creatibe Environmental Education" on Vimeo here ->

PLEASE DONATE 
for more ZERO WASTE, CLIMATE education
and free resources for schools across NYC, the US and the world!
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Can't donate?
TAKE ACTION! ->
and subscribe to our YouTube Channel 
​and share our videos!

PLASTIC FREE LUNCH DAY!
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​Your generous donation to Cafeteria Culture is is tax deductible through our fiscal sponsor, Fund for the City of New York, a 501 c3 organization.
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Can't donate? Follow us!
INSTAGRAM @CafCu
TWITTER @CafeteriaCu
FACEBOOK CafeteriaCulture/Styrofoam Out of Schools
SUBSCRIBE - YOUTUBE- CafCu Media

Watch: A Message from 8th Grade Filmmakers in Brooklyn about plastic litter
Watch LITTER MONSTERS on Vimeo here ->
​Watch more Youth Made TRASH FREE WATERS videos here ->
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Gas sucking, carbon spewing trucks crisscross the city, 
taking garbage to waste transfer stations,
then to landfills and incinerators
out-of-state 
as far as way as North Carolina.
The entire trash cycle
produces carbon and methane emissions,
contributes to climate change, and
negatively impacts Black and Brown communities
all along the way.
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Cafeteria Culture is working creatively  to achieve
equitable zero waste schools and climate smart communities
through education, arts, media, and action. 
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Thank you to all of our your generous donors! 
CafCu Donors and Partners ->
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Musician and activist, Jack Johnson, with Cafeteria Culture Executive Director/Founder - Debby Lee Cohen and fabulous intern, Christine Herman-Velazquez (Brooklyn, 2014). The Johnson Ohana Foundation, founded by Kim and Jack Johnson to support environmental, art, and music education, has been supporting Cafeteria Culture's educational programs since 2010!
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Cafeteria Culture history

Founded in 2009 as Styrofoam Out of Schools,  Cafeteria Culture catalyzed the complete elimination of polystyrene (aka styrofoam) trays in NYC and 9 other US urban school districts, resulting in the elimination of half a BILLION styrofoam trays per year from landfills, incinerators, and our children’s school meals across the US.

We achieved this remarkable victory by working in partnership with NYC Department of Education School Food Directors, parents, teachers, elected officials and students, who played a key role in winning this victory!

Central to our work is piloting innovative, hands-on environmental education with student leadership and climate action in school and neighboring communities. To date, we have primarily led our school programs in low-income communities of color in Manhattan and Brooklyn. We seek partner schools with different challenges in our quest to find solutions and develop cafeteria and classroom curricula that schools citywide can benefit from.

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Students who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are empowered through our programs to debate, ask questions, tell their own stories about food waste, garbage and environmental justice, and to participate in the design of effective solutions to these very immediate problems.

Students actively engage in Civic Participation and Environmental Activism, both locally and on citywide issues (watch: “5th Grade  Change-Makers Take Action on Bag Bill”. Teaching Media Production and co-creating videos with youth as an empowerment and educational tool is another unique component of our programs. (see our YouTube channel, CafCu Media)


Your generous donation to Cafeteria Culture
​ is is tax deductible through our fiscal sponsor, 
​Fund for the City of New York, a 501 c3 organization.