Louise Bruce, New York, NY

Senior Program Manager, NYC Organics, NYC Department of Sanitation

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Louise Bruce is passionately committed to the idea that, in order to grow healthy communities and a strong food system, it is critical that we nourish our soils. In pursuit of that aim, she has worked to increase food waste composting at all scales, from the neighborhood level on up. In 2010, she rallied neighbors to transform a vacant lot into a thriving ‘compost first’ garden, called Compost for Brooklyn. Soon after opening, hundreds of local community members began regularly participating in the project by volunteering, bringing their kitchen scraps, and by using the finished compost to beautify the local neighborhood. Inspired by the project and her neighbors, she dedicated her early career to community-based composting. Louise led Big Reuse's (formerly Build It Green!NYC) compost team, and later the NYC Department of Sanitation’s NYC Compost Project, which aims to provide New York City residents with the skills, knowledge, and opportunities they need to make and use compost locally. Today, Louise continues to work for the NYC Department of Sanitation, where she oversees the development and expansion of organic waste management programs to meet the City's goal of providing all New Yorkers with curbside collection and convenient local drop-off locations where they can recycle their food waste. Louise holds a Master of Urban Planning from NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University.

  • Community organizing / civic engagement

  • Grantwriting

  • Other forms of fundraising

  • Communications/PR/Media

  • Storytelling/Public Speaking

  • Permitting/navigating regulatory requirements

  • Volunteer management

  • Leadership development / organizational strategy

  • Sustainability / resilience

  • Urban design

  • Activating vacant lots / vacant spaces

  • Impact / outcome measurement

  • I ran an awesome ioby campaign

  • Other: Anything waste or compost related!

 

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