Early in summer 2020, New York City had just begun to emerge from the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. The crisis prompted composting programs to be cut from the city budget. In the beginning stage of these crises, Nurture BK Compost was born to fill the gap. Neighbors showed up each Sunday at the corner of Parkside & Ocean Avenues in Flatbush, Brooklyn to collect food scraps from neighbors for composting.  

Since then, the operation has grown to include volunteers who schlep equipment back and forth from a storage location in the alleyway of a generous neighbor’s building, conduct quality control of scraps by removing stickers and other contaminants, chop up the scraps to collect as much as possible in toter bins and begin the decomposition process, and collect food and other items for various recycling initiatives. We collect around 2,000 pounds of food scraps per week, sometimes nearly 3,000 pounds, which the non-profit Big Reuse processes into finished compost. 

In addition to collecting food scraps, we host a free food table, in which we collect food to distribute to neighborhood community fridges. We lead recycling initiatives to collect myriad items in order to keep them out of the waste stream. We are raising funds to sustain and expand Nurture BK Compost's operations in the long term.