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2024 SUSTAINABILITY HIGHLIGHTS.

So many God moments happened at Grace Klein Community in 2024!
We are excited to reflect and share these sustainability highlights.

Positions:

  • Hired our first Sustainability Liaison in August 2024 after she was an intern
  • Three sustainability-focused interns

Programs:

  • Provided a school supply drive in August and a Christmas toy drive in December, plus monthly diaper drives with our partners at Bundles of Hope
  • Supplied the community with over $XXX,XXX of donated clothes and household goods through our Give and Take room
  • We Sew Love measurable
  • Global partners?

Reduce, reuse, recycle:

  • Repurposed all glass containers for flower vases
  • Recycled aluminum, cardboard, wooden pallets, and started recycling plastics 1 and 2
  • Grew our recycling equipment with a cardboard baler and an automatic can crusher, both residing in the Morgan Hub
  • Partnered with Iron City Disposal and Rental, owned by Andre Towns, to recycle all our carboard for the year 2024, totaling over 53 tons of cardboard saved from the landfill
  • Purchased and implemented 4 composting trashcans at 4 different community properties to reduce food waste
  • Constructed an outdoor three-bin compost bin system at Morgan Hub, built out of recycled wooden pallets

Acres and Acres:

  • Built four bin compost system at Acres in March and completed first compost cycle, producing dense, rich soil for onsite community garden
  • Reseeded the bank of the creek with rye to reduce soil and bank erosion
  • Basil plants and ghost pepper plants thrived in the community garden
  • Created solar panel water pump in summer 2024 to water the garden with overage creek water
  • Created a dam in the onsite creek using rocks and clay found on site. The dam is creating a pool of water which will be used for watering the community garden.
  • Constructed refurbished wooden benches by eagle scouts
  • Started recycling on site in summer 2024: aluminum cans, cardboard, plastics 1 and 2
  • Grew 5 avocado plants from seed, now measuring over a foot each

Events:

  • Attended and was one of the Sustainability Sponsors at the BHam Food+ celebrity chef event on September 21st and 22nd , where we rescued 1,663 pounds of food, all the aluminum cans, and the cardboard
  • Tabled in the Cahaba Riverkeeper Career Expo on August 3rd
  • Tabled at Jones Valley Teaching Farm for the first Alabama Regenerative Growers Conference on November 2nd
  • Promoted food rescue to all vendors at the Cahaba River Society Fish Fry Down on September 29th and rescued all the food—743 pounds of beverages, 60 pounds of fresh catfish, and bread.
  • Performed our first three flower rescues, totaling over $20,000 in in-kind donations from weddings

Community Outreach:

  • Our Sustainability Liaison was invited to the Samford Sustainability Committee for Fall 2024 and accepted onto a Community Advisory Board for post-doctoral research at University of Alabama Birmingham.
  • Started a food rescue for extra credit initiative. In two months and with two Samford University professors, we added 100 food rescuers. We presented Grace Klein Community’s mission, vision, and heart to 211 Samford students. Now, 5 Samford professors have agreed to this initiative in spring 2025
  • Assisted Cahaba River Society in a clean-up event day on October 22nd.
  • Hosted our first two sustainable love does flower arranging classes for the Fairfield Senior Center, a food pickup partners, and Texas Roadhouse Pelham, a business partner.
  • Thanked ### business sponsored with ### unique, handmade cardboard signs (plus Professor Newberry and a few community members)
  • Conducted first lunch scrap social experiment with Samford University Cafeteria, find article here *insert link*
  • Created four unique sustainability focused short-form videos which attracted 6,955 Instagram views across the four videos in 5 months. 
POUNDS of food rescued
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Food rescue heroes
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Volunteer Hours
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food distribution partners
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Unique people fed
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