Happy to promote Mercer County 4-H and Composting at 2013 NJ Agriculture Convention as the Mercer County Ambassador

Participating at the Agriculture Convention promoting Composting - http://www.mercerspace.com/news/4-h-ambassador-attends-convention/

Got unique opportunity to present benefits for sustainability at Youth Tedx Talk

On November 16th 2012, I was invited to give a Youth TedX talk at the Princeton library about my accomplishments with composting in the community. Kim Dorman and Janie Hermann were the two very helpful organizers who held the program and helped me present my TedX talk in a professional and elegant manner. I thank them! Below is a link to a video of my TedX talk!

Leadership Certificate and Saving Bond Given by Princeton Agriculture Association

In December, I was given a leadership certificate and saving bond by the Princeton Agricultural Association. I was invited for dinner with the Princeton Agricultural Association to receive an award for my club projects throughout the year.

http://mercer.njaes.rutgers.edu/4h/forum/NewsletterWinter2013.pdf

American Embassy magazine- American Youth: In on the Social Action » SPAN September/October 2012

Last year, Jane Malhotra, a freelance write for Span Magazine, published by the US Embassy in India contacted me about my activities on sustainability as she was writing an article on volunteerism in the United States.

A few months later she wrote an article about young Americans who spend many hours serving their community. My project was part of her article.  

The article: 

http://span.state.gov/sept-oct2012/eng/38-39-american-youth.html

Cherry Grove Farm Composting.

My next goal was to start composting in farms, so more of the community is involved. Further, people who live in condos and don't get to compost due to the restrictions can help the environment by donating their waste to the farm.
Here, the farm would collect the food waste and use its yard and animal waste and compost for the gardens in the farm; in case other people wanted to take the left-over compost.
I talked to the owner of Cherry Grove Farm, Mr Oliver, about setting up Community Composting at the arm and he graciously agreed.
Together, we were able to build a huge compost bin for the public, and the farm decided to advertise it on their website so people get awareness. At the same time, I informed neighbors and friends about this new program, and soon we had people going and putting their food waste into the compost bin.

I thank Cherry Grove Farm for allowing me to setup the bins for Community Composting at their farm - http://www.cherrygrovefarm.com/2012/08/community-composting-at-cherry-grove-farm/

Composting in Our Community!

My family and I first started composting in our backyard in October. We have really bad composting conditions in our backyard because we don't really have soil and we have a patio. As a result, when we first began, it was almost like indoor composting but it wasn't very efficient. Fortunately enough, a month or two later, our neighbor, Pooja Mehrotra, whose son, Raghav, is also part of the 4-H club, showed interest in composting and gave us the permission move the compost bin to her backyard. Our two families began composting together every week. Later, we found another family interested in composting; this family, the Nigams, daughter, Khushi Nigam, is also part of the 4-H club. Now, the three families compost together in the Mehrotra's backyard and we plan to meet every Sunday. Our goal, as a club, is to get more families involved in our little composting project, so we could preserve our environment on one step at a time, one person at a time; another family in our community is interested already!

Beyond My Gold Award!

After my the completion of the Gold Award, I decided that I did not want to drop the topic of composting just yet, so I started a 4-H club called, "Treasuring The Trash." As of now, we have three members in this club and our main focus to preserve the environment one step at a time, one person at a time. In this club, I figured "treasuring the trash" could be other stuff besides composting as well because people always have new ideas on what we can do with our trash to recycle it and ensure that it does not go to the landfills. Our club was started on November 18th, 2011 and we already competed on county level to do a presentation on our projects. I wish to continue being a 4-H member and sustaining the composting project beyond my High School years.