For grade schools in three of the Cross-Community Climate Collaborative member communities, the start of the school year meant more than classroom education.Thanks to a $300,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, officials of schools in Bellwood, Broadview and Maywood started working toward educating their students about composting in their school lunchrooms.The C4 initiative was created in June 2022 by officials from 12 west suburban municipalities and spearheaded by Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson, Oak Park Village President Vicki Scaman and River Forest Village President Cathy Adduci. It is designed to bring together Black, indigenous and people of color and non-minority communities across income lines to share ideas, secure resources and drive large-scale projects within and across communities that achieve agreed upon greenhouse gas emissions reductions, equity and sustainability goals. The USDA grant allows school district officials to participate in the Sev
At the end of lunch in every Evanston/Skokie School District 65 school, students sort their waste into landfill, recycling and compost bins, stacking their compostable trays on the side. Making composting part of students’ daily routines was no small feat. After a decade of work, District 65 Sustainability Coordinator Karen Bireta said all buildings in.
One group of Evanston/Skokie School District 65 parents hopes to make the schools greener from the top down. The District 65 Climate Actions team is a group of parents urging the district to ramp up its response to climate change by taking districtwide steps instead of relying on individual schools to create their own plans..