Tag Archives: Brooklyn

Composting in New York

KCC Urban Farm compost

KCC Urban Farm compost

Great news from PlaNYC! In the first 6 months of the city’s composting pilot program, over 2,500 tons of solid waste has been diverted from city landfills. That’s a lot of waste! The current pilot is running with curbside pickup in Staten Island and a handful of restaurants throughout the city. The Food Waste Challenge, which encourages restaurants to reduce food waste in city landfills by 50%, is part of the larger PlaNYC challenge to divert 75% of all solid waste from landfills by 2030. Despite still being in its adolescent stage, this initiative is expected to make significant changes to the way New Yorkers handle their waste.

Composting at KCC Urban Farm in Brooklyn is big! Our compost comes from Farm leftovers, as well as waste from Kingsborough’s Culinary Arts program. We have plans to revamp our current system as well as to develop a new, campus-wide collection and processing system. While this new program hasn’t yet gotten off the ground, our larger goal is engage the campus community with drop-offs for faculty, staff, students and other campus entities, as well as creating a more robust and collaborative system of learning for everyone involved. If you’re interested in learning more about composting or would like to be involved in this new initiative, contact the KCC Urban Farm (kccurbanfarm@kbcc.cuny.edu or 718.368.6578) for site visits or a list of our Continuing Education classes.

Homecoming at KCC Urban Farm

Last Sunday, KCC Urban Farm continued our tradition of hosting cooking demonstrations and farm tours at KCC’s annual Homecoming. Denia, our cooking demo CLT, showcased farm-fresh salsa with homemade chips and a variety of sauteed greens. Our fall greens include five varieties of Asian greens, turnip and radish greens, collard greens, and kale. In a few weeks, mustard greens will be ready to add to that list!

Denia and her daughter making salsa and greens

Denia and her daughter making salsa and greens

Farm-grown salsa with homemade chips

Farm-grown salsa with homemade chips

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Congratulations, Project Rise Cohort 3!

Just last month, Project Rise held a Finishing Ceremony for our third cohort of participants. The results of this cohort far exceeded the program’s expected outcomes:

13 participants earned their GED
9 completed internships (a whopping 180 hours, each)
10 earned jobs through Project Rise efforts
3 were accepted at Kingsborough Community College (taking credits with them!)

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GIS at KCC

Enroll now for a course in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) through CEWD and Continuing Education at Kingsborough Community College. This course integrates hardware, software and data for acquiring, managing, investigating, evaluating and presenting all forms of spatial information. Let our course help you answer questions and solve problems by looking at your data in a way that is quickly understood and easily shared. This course is perfect for the real estate industry, education professionals, conservation organizations & all types of businesses!

To register, click here or call 718.368.5050.

Kingsborough Awarded DOL Grant

Kingsborough Community College, Center for Economic and Workforce Development
The Northeast Resiliency Consortium

September 26, 2013

Kingsborough Community College (KCC) has just been awarded a $3.8 million Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (DOL TAACCCT) grant. The TAACCCT program, administered by the US Department of Labor in collaboration with the US Department of Education, is a multi-year initiative seeking to expand training programs for workers impacted by foreign trade and other under- and unemployed workers.  Round 1 funding, awarded in September 2011, supports CUNY CareerPATH, a highly successful program led by KCC and the CUNY Central Office that prepares people for employment and college through credit bearing occupational training. Round 3 will fund the Northeast Resiliency Consortium, a regional collaboration led by Passaic County Community College.

The Northeast Resiliency Consortium (NRC), a collaboration of seven east coast colleges—Atlantic Cape (NJ), Bunker Hill (MA), Capital (CT), Housatonic (MA), Kingsborough (NY), LaGuardia (NY)  and lead, Passaic County (NJ) Community Colleges—in partnership with Achieving the Dream and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, will train a highly skilled and resilient workforce that is prepared to mitigate the short- and long-term vulnerabilities and risks resulting from disasters and crises. The institutions that make up this consortium bring with them experiences responding to and recovering from recent disasters including Superstorm Sandy, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings and the Boston Marathon bombings.

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