Trinity College (CT)
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Our composting program first started in the fall of 2015 when students in our Green Campus organization started picking up back-of-house food scraps (typically five or six 30-gallon bins) from our main dining hall twice a week and delivering it to local community gardening organization (KNOX Inc.) to o be used in building up their compost piles for eventual use in their gardens throughout the city.

In the third year of the project (2017-2018) the students involved wanted the College to do more to support composting beyond what they were doing. This being the case, they proposed that the College enter into an agreement with a local composting company--Blue Earth Compost--which would involve composting all of the front- and back-of-house food waste in the main dining hall as well a couple of other smaller ones. After some negotiating and planning, the new dining hall composting program began in October 2018 and to date has composted 32.74 tons of food waste. More information about the composting program can be found at www.trincoll.edu/sustainability/waste-management.

The Trinfo Cafe community garden is an urban community garden located on the grounds of the Trinfo Cafe, a neighborhood technology center run by Trinity College. Its aim is to strengthen the relationship between the College and the Hartford community. This project provides Hartford families with food security by providing them access to nutritious foods at a reasonable price and by promoting healthy practices. Throughout the summer community residents, Trinity faculty, staff and students grow squash, tomatoes, beans and other types of produce. More information can be found at he Trinity Community Garden is an urban community garden located on Broad Street between Vernon Street and Allen Place, started by Trinity College. Its aim is to strengthen the relationship between the college and the Hartford community. This project provides Hartford families with food security by providing them access to nutritious foods at a reasonable price and by promoting healthy practices. Throughout the summer community residents, Trinity faculty, staff and students grow squash, tomatoes, beans and other types of produce. More information can be found at https://trinfocafe.org/index.php/trinity-college-community-garden.

This program involves picking up prepared but unserved food from the College's main dining hall once a week and delivering to a local homeless shelter (ImmaCare -- wwww.immmacare.org). We were only able to get this rolling in the middle of the spring 2019 semester but in the 6 weeks we did run, we picked up and delivered over 480 pounds of food for ImmaCare. ImmaCare is right starting a major renovation project so they won't be able to accept our food during the next academic year but we are looking to identify and partner with another community organization for that time and perhaps beyond.

Bantam Bus Pass/U-Pass: Since 1999, we have worked with CT Transit to provide a bus pass for every student at Trinity that allows them access to the CT Transit bus system at no out-of-pocket cost to the student. We pay for this per ride and are billed monthly. The Student Government Association has been the primary funder of this initiative.