Project Report
Alyssa Kiefer
April 28, 2017
“Community and Composting in Victory Acres”
Clients: Victory Acres Residents
Abstract
"Community and Composting in Victory Acres” implemented a pilot composting
program for a local neighborhood in an effort to increase community cohesion. Victory Acres is
a low-income, culturally diverse neighborhood located in Tempe that used to have easier access
to the Escalante Community Center before the 101 freeway divided the community. Residents of
the neighborhoods surrounding ECC do not have access to the Escalante Community Garden
except on Community Harvest Days twice a month. The goal of the project was to reconnect
broken ties to the ECG through a neighborhood composting service. Through composting,
residents could directly benefit from the community garden’s composting capabilities while
encouraging a more sustainable method for dealing with food waste. The composting pilot
project in Victory Acres was used as a way to mitigate the greenhouse gases emanating from
food waste along with other neighborhood issues. The project would encourage aspects of
community cohesion, sustainability, and happiness.
By the completion of the project, composting in the neighborhood could continue
through increased access to the Escalante Community Center Garden. An assessment via
survey responses was made on improvements in perceived community connectedness,
sustainability, and happiness. The pilot was unsuccessful in gaining a large client base for
composting participation, but it was successful in exploring challenges and barriers to
implementation of projects in Victory Acres. Several intervention points were explored,
several lessons were learned from successful and unsuccessful engagement techniques,
and opportunities arose for further future research.

Community and Composting in Victory Acres

Table of Contents
Project Goals
Context
Literature Review
Methodology
Findings and Conclusions
Future Directions
Appendices and Acknowledgements
References

Project Goals
The primary goal of the project was to reconnect broken ties to the Escalante Community
Center (ECC) through a neighborhood composting service. Residents of the neighborhoods
surrounding the ECC did not have access to the Escalante Community Garden (ECG) except on
Community Harvest Days twice a month. Increased residential access to the ECG would help
close the distance between ECC and Victory Acres (VA) residents, increase community
cohesion, increase sustainability efforts in the neighborhood, and increase happiness. Through
composting, residents could directly benefit from the community garden’s composting
capabilities while encouraging a more sustainable method for dealing with residential food
waste. The desired outcome of of the project was to increase a perception of community
cohesion, sustainability, and happiness. This would be qualitatively determined by two surveys
given: first when each resident began composting and again at the completion of the project.
The project was used as a pilot to test assumptions and find challenges to implementation
of projects in the community. It was able to identify several barriers to program participation and
began to build a foundation for the success of programs in the future. Success was not
determined by the number of residents participating in the composting initiative; the project was
to be considered successful if any residents participated, and these participants were able to give
further insight into why more residents were not willing to take part in the composting project.
As a supplementary goal, the project aimed to spread knowledge about the methods and
benefits of composting and increase composting rates in Victory Acres. The approximate weight
of food waste collected and composted at ECG was recorded throughout the project. This
statistic was reported to participating residents in the final deliverable to the client; this statistic
was also converted to greenhouse gas savings from diverting the waste from landfill. This,
theoretically, would help reinforce the connection between composting, sustainability, and the
community’s collective impact potential.
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Context
In the ASU School of Sustainability, we clearly connect sustainability and happiness with
waste reduction. In other parts of the Phoenix metropolitan area, the connection is not as clear:
waste management remains a nationwide and statewide sustainability issue. “Yard trimmings and
food waste make up 45% of Phoenix's solid waste stream,” most of which ends up in area
landfills and adds carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere as it breaks down (City of
Phoenix 2016, savethefood.com). Preliminary data in a Phoenix waste characterization study of
city-collected residential garbage found that food waste is one of the most prevalently disposed
of materials with approximately “56,466 tons of residential food waste [...] disposed of annually"
(Ilioi 2014).
Organic waste is a fundamental area of focus if Arizona is to achieve the ambitious goal
of removing 40% of organic waste materials from Phoenix area landfills by 2020 (City of
Phoenix 2016, Ilioi 2014), a vast improvement “from the current 13% diversion rate, which is
below the national average” (Reid 2013). City officials also want to boost composting and
recycling practices because of concerns about burdening landfills (Reid 2013). “When you
dispose of compostable material in a landfill, not only are you taking up space in the landfill, you
are disposing of organic material that can be composted and used in the garden” (ADEQ 2016).
Tempe, as part of the Phoenix metropolitan area, offers several compost pickup services;
each of these services has its own cost and contract. A monthly cost can be a significant deterrent
from a composting service to a Victory Acres household with an average income of $35,000
(www.city-data.com), although it is unknown how many residents of VA currently utilize one of
these services. In order to mitigate the burden that accompanies Tempe compost services,
participation in the pilot project in VA was free to residents.
However, when the project began Victory Acres had no neighborhood-level composting
program in place, nor did residents have access to the ECG except during volunteer hours and on
formal Community Harvest Days, which occur twice a month. Even on Community Harvest
Days, residents were not informed that they could bring their separated compostable materials,
nor were there any composting instructions available. ECG Community Harvest Days are
focused on the garden, rather than the compost system; these Community Harvest Days
encourage community members to help with garden tasks such as planting and pruning, learn
about plants that flourish in the desert climate, and take home several varieties of fresh
vegetables that have grown there. Garden plots are owned and managed by ECC at all other
times, and the gate is closed and locked during non-volunteer hours.
This pilot project aimed to make sustainable compost options more available to a lowincome community. The composting capabilities at the ECG offered a localized solution to a
citywide issue of food waste; the benefits from composting food waste directly benefitted the
ECG and thus the community surrounding it. When neighborhood food scraps were composted
at the Escalante Community garden, the chickens were fed and more eggs could be produced, the
compost soil was put back into the ECC garden to nourish plants growing there, and those plants
and the chicken eggs were both taken to be used in the ECC cafe. This strengthens the
understanding of how composting at home impacts the food you eat, your health, and your
happiness. Composting through city-offered services does not benefit the community in this way.
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Literature Review
Community connectedness, sustainability, and happiness are linked ideas. “Community
amenities and environmental conditions have been found to contribute to the domains of
happiness of residents” (Cloutier & Pfeiffer 2015). Since communities impact happiness through
the cultivation of social relationships and the inclusion of “amenities that affect wellbeing”
(Cloutier & Pfeiffer 2015), then the inclusion of a sustainable community amenity, such as
composting, also holds the potential to positively impact happiness. The Sustainability Through
Happiness Framework solidifies the theory that improving one aspect of community cohesion,
sustainability, or happiness would positively impact one or all three of the other aspects. Scott
Cloutier’s Sustainable Neighborhoods and Happiness course further taught how social cohesion
and local amenities can play a role in happiness, and how “we may just find that a happy
neighborhood is a sustainable neighborhood” (Cloutier & Pfeiffer 2015).
While Cloutier and Pfeiffer’s Sustainability Through Happiness Framework was helpful
in linking community, sustainability, and happiness, the project utilized Arnim Wiek’s
Sustainability Solutions Framework to implement its solution strategies. This framework can be
boiled down to a three-stage model: first, identify the current state as a problem; second, create a
sustainable solution strategy through a theory of change or evidence; lastly, enable a sustainable
solution vision (Wiek 2015). It is important to note that the vision state is not developed solely
by the project manager, but by the collective efforts of the project clients (VA residents), project
partners (the ECC and ECG), and the project manager or project team. The project vision
focused on a specific aspect of community systems planning (waste), engaging potential
participants to incorporate their feedback, planning intervention points, and encouraging a vision
of sustainability and happiness. The goal was to re-link Victory Acres to the community garden
via its composting capabilities, encourage sustainable actions, and increase a sense of personal
happiness through increasing both sustainability and community cohesion. In light of the
difficulties that the project faced, the path was much less straightforward than these frameworks
suggest which is not uncharacteristic of sustainability efforts.

Methodology
I first canvassed Victory Acres for interest in a free compost program as part of the
Sustainable Neighborhoods and Happiness course in fall 2016. I created a flier advertising
several services the class could provide including the compost project (Appendix 1), and this
flier was handed out during ‘Reverse Trick-or-Treating’ on October 31, 2016 and on the City of
Tempe’s Zero Waste Day on November 12, 2016. Around 50 residents were spoken to
personally on a door-to-door campaign in fall 2016, and many responded positively to the
projects proposed including the composting pilot project.
After initial interest in the program was significant, I contacted Dave Talley at the
Escalante Community Garden and we formed a partnership. He gave me instructions, a tour, and
key to the garden gate. He was very excited to expand the garden’s impact across the
neighborhood surrounding ECC. I also contacted JD Hill at Recycled City in fall 2016 and told
him my plan to collect compost from residents in Victory Acres. If the number of residents
participating grew, he agreed to collect compost from the neighborhood and drop it off at the
ECG compost center for a significantly reduced monthly rate.
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The Sustainable Neighborhoods and Happiness course held a gardening/composting class
at ECC on November 19, 2016. We developed a lesson plan that detailed best gardening
practices in our desert environment and showed the connection between a flourishing garden and
composting for soil health. Later that day, we set up a table at the Community Block Party in an
effort to recruit attendees into the composting program. The only items the table had were
buckets and a sign-up sheet. Several residents stopped at the table to ask questions, but no new
residents signed up during that effort. However, the Community Block Party was an encouraging
success with lots of residents and their families coming to listen to music, play games in the
blocked-off street, and talk to their neighbors. Soon after, I began to post project advertisements
(Appendix 3) across heavily trafficked areas in Victory Acres.
For the residents that had committed to the project, I created a compost education poster
(Appendix 2). This poster was available to the clients in either printed or pdf formats. The items
listed as ‘compostable’ on the poster were specific to the ECG specifications; the garden is also
home to chickens and a turkey, and all items allowable to compost were cross-checked to ensure
the safety and health of the animals. The poster was delivered to the client along with the
collection bucket. When both of these items had been distributed, I could begin the composting
service and data collection.
By February and March 2017, several residents dropped interest in the composting pilot.
In an effort to regain participants, I continued to post project advertisements at ECC, Saint
Margaret Catholic Church in the neighborhood, a book exchange box, and other frequently seen
areas (Appendix 3). I attended ECG Community Harvest Days and spoke to as many people
about the project as would listen to me. Meanwhile, I continued composting for the residents that
were still participating; by the completion of the project, 348 pounds of food waste was collected
and composted at the Escalante Community Garden.
The final deliverable was presented at a table at the Community Block Party on April 22,
2017 (Appendix 4). This document was a plan for how composting can continue in Victory
Acres and the results of the pilot project in terms of pounds of food waste diverted from landfill
and greenhouse gas savings. At this Community Block Party, in contrast to the table set up
during the fall 2016 Community Block Party, I displayed visual composting guides and my
composting “Do’s and Don’ts” poster (Appendix 2). There was also a simple game that could
engage everyone from children to adults while showing which everyday items could be
composted instead of thrown in the trash (Appendix 5). Candy was offered as encouragement to
play, and those who successfully categorized items into the correct waste stream were rewarded
with the candy pieces. Recycling, compost, and trash bins were offered side-by-side all day, and
8 pounds of food scraps were collected from the Community Block Party and later composted at
ECG.

Findings and Conclusions
While the participation rates for the composting pilot in VA were low, there was a
significant amount of food waste diverted from Phoenix area landfills during the project timeline.
Over 350 pounds of residential food waste was collected and composted at ECG in 4 months’
time. This translates into 301 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas savings
(Watch My Waste 2017). Even more encouraging is acknowledging that those 350 pounds of
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food waste were composted and returned as soil to the Escalante Community Garden or various
neighborhood gardens to nourish plant life. These plants also capture carbon dioxide in the air,
further expanding the tangible benefits of this small pilot project in VA.
The project was highly successful in both starting a composting initiative in Victory
Acres and in creating a pathway for composting to continue after the project timeline. At the
onset of the project, ECG was open to residential access only during volunteer hours and
Community Harvest Days. Furthermore, residents were not allowed to bring their own separated
food waste to the garden to compost. Due to the partnerships formed with ECC during this pilot,
residents of VA and other surrounding neighborhoods are now allowed to drop off separated
food waste during specified garden volunteer hours (7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday).
The “Composting Do’s and Don’t’s” poster and the final deliverable will still be available as
resources to residents to facilitate the proper composting techniques required at ECG. The final
deliverable also showed several details about the project, including the pounds of waste diverted
during the project timeline and greenhouse gas savings. Hopefully, these results encourage more
participation in composting in VA in the future by solidifying the community’s impact potential
in meeting the Phoenix area’s waste diversion goals.
During the school year, students of the future Sustainable Neighborhoods and Happiness
classes will enable composting to continue in the neighborhood for interested residents.
Residential compost pick-up in VA will be during class hours. Residents can contact the class
email, ASUHappyHoods@gmail.com, to sign up for the service, receive their copy of the “Do’s
and Don’t’s” poster (Appendix 2), and communicate with the class. The key to the garden was
given to Scott Cloutier, the professor of the course, who is also in possession of the compost
buckets. Copies of all deliverables have been shared in a Google Drive folder and sent to the
project partners at ECG for future access.
The survey to assess perceived increases in sustainability, personal happiness, and
community cohesion produced inconclusive results due to the small sample size. If more
residents had participated in the composting pilot and persevered through the whole timeline,
more survey results could have been collected to better assess the project’s effect on the
neighborhood’s perceptions. This is not to say the pilot was unsuccessful in helping to increase
levels of community cohesion, sustainability and happiness; “the community garden is only part
of a larger system focused on improving happiness” (Cloutier & Pfeiffer 2015).
This project faced many barriers to adopting practices that are difficult to observe even in
more affluent communities. While initial interest in the composting pilot was significant, when it
came time to begin the program, many neighborhood residents decided not to participate. The
educational ventures had similar low participation rates, but compost education did not seem to
be the limiting factor in gaining resident involvement in the project. In fact residents seemed to
readily understand composting when explained, but I found that education on a matter and
eagerness of the project manager are not enough to persuade changes to behavior. Rather, time
dedication to the project was the most cited reason for lack of desire to participate. Clarifying
compostable materials is the first step; separating trash into compost, recycling, and trash is the
next step; monitoring it and coordinating pick-up times is another step. All of these steps take
time. This lack of time felt by residents is understandable considering the demographics of the
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neighborhood: 15% are single parent households, 82% of families have both spouses working,
and 30% of households are below the United States declared poverty level (city-data.com).
When a family is struggling to make ends meet and have time for family dinner, taking on a new
project is simply not a priority.
Since success was not determined by the number of residents participating in the
composting initiative, the advancements made in understanding the needs of Victory Acres
render the pilot project successful. The pilot was meant to test assumptions and find challenges
to implementation of projects in the VA community, and it was able to identify several barriers
to program participation. First, residents do not have very much spare time due to economic
struggles, and prefer to use what time they have to spend time with family or loved ones. A
project that either facilitated family time or facilitated productivity without kids interrupting it
could be an easier way to engage the neighborhood residents in projects. Second, trust can be in
short supply. “There is a deep mistrust of outside organizations coming into the community,
conducting research and leaving the community behind” (Cloutier & Pfeiffer 2015). No one
wants a complete stranger to give criticism on their home, neighborhood, or lifestyle in order to
suggest change; a friend who gives the same constructive criticism will be much better received.
In this way, personal relationships seemed to be the best way to gain interest in projects. For
example, when canvassing the neighborhood for initial interest in compost in fall 2016, the only
people who made lasting commitments to the project were the residents I had already met several
times. Other residents said they ‘would’ or ‘might’ participate, but these residents all dropped
interest by the time the composting service was able to begin. However, I made friends with
residents throughout the pilot. I was able to form one particularly strong, personal relationship
with Terry, and helping her compost was only the start to helping her with other projects. I
helped with her garden, helped her manage technology, and we talked on the phone at least once
a week. She is now not only my friend, but a valuable contact in VA when considering future
neighborhood projects.

Future Directions
The pilot project helped assess the potential for programs in the future. For example, a
project involving reduced or free childcare for children under 6 would probably do very well in
Victory Acres. ECC offers free memberships to youth aged between 6 and 17, but in 2015 there
were 71 children in the neighborhood under the age of 6 (city-data.com). ECC also does not
provide childcare for any ages on weekend days. The limitation of childcare could be blocking
the ability of residents to participate in programs and projects happening in the neighborhood;
meeting the needs of the residents is fundamental to community engagement and a viable way
increase both community cohesion and happiness. On the other hand, projects that facilitate time
spent with the entire family could also do well in Victory Acres. The Community Block Party
that the Sustainable Neighborhoods and Happiness class puts on each semester is very
successful, partly due to the fact that it offers appropriate activities for all ages. The whole family
comes out to chat, mingle with neighbors, listen to music, eat free food, and play games. The
party entertains multiple generations of people and encourages community cohesion and
happiness in a new, fun way.
While in this case composting was not the most successful path in gaining community
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engagement, Victory Acres is receptive to many other projects. Habitat for Humanity and other
service groups are very successful in the neighborhood. Scott Cloutier’s Sustainable
Neighborhoods and Happiness class will also continue to do humanitarian work in VA. Around
50 residents were spoken to personally on a door-to-door campaign in fall 2016, and many
responded positively to the various projects proposed by students in the course, including my
free composting pilot project. A future student interested in waste reduction, community
connectedness, and human behavior changes toward sustainability would be able to continue this
using this pilot as a springboard for a full-scale composting project or alter it to fit his or her
research interests.
The road to community connectedness, sustainability, and happiness is much longer than
4 months. In fact, it took 4 months to find and explore various pathways that might lead to the
road itself. Regardless of the long pathway to improvement, efforts in the sake of these noble
features should never be dismissed. Even a smidge of progress in the name of sustainability is
progress to be proud of.

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Appendices and Acknowledgements
Appendix 1: Sustainable Neighborhoods for Happiness Service Flier
Front:

Back:

Appendix 2: “Composting Do’s and Don’ts” Poster

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Appendix 3: Project Advertisement Poster

Appendix 4: Final Client Deliverable

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Appendix 5: Table and Game at Community Block Party April 2017

Acknowledgements:
During the fall 2016 semester, my pilot had the assistance of several Sustainable
Neighborhoods and Happiness course members including Jason Tibbets, Erica Berejnoi, and
Lena Van der Kamp.
I would like to acknowledge my partners at the Escalante Community Center Susan
Shipka, and Salvador Galvan, and especially Dave Talley. Without the support and guidance of
Dave, a partnership with ECC could not have been formed and the project would not have been
possible. I also appreciate the continued support from Susan and Salvador upon hearing of my
project pilot in progress.
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This project would be very different without the continued guidance from Dr. Scott
Cloutier. A shared passion for improving people’s lives produced the idea for this project, and
constant encouragement kept it alive. Similarly, Paul Prosser was a valuable resource to the pilot.
His dedication to ensuring project success is deeply appreciated, and he was essential to the
project meeting all requirements in a timely and complete manner.
I am indebted to Terry, the sole resident of Victory Acres to participate in the composting
initiative from start to finish. Thank you for willing to perform this experiment with me, and I
am happy that we were able to form such a valuable friendship through this project.

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References
Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. (2016). “Waste Programs Division: Pollution
Prevention: Kitchen.” Retrieved from http://legacy.azdeq.gov/environ/waste/p2/kitchen.html
City-data.com. (2015). “Victory Acres Neighborhood in Tempe, Arizona (AZ), 85281 Detailed
Profile.” Retrieved from http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Victory-Acres-Tempe-AZ.html
City of Phoenix. (2016). “Phoenix compost study.” Retrieved from
https://www.phoenix.gov/publicworks/phx-compost-study
Cloutier, S. and Pfeiffer, D. (2015). “Sustainability Through Happiness: A Framework for
Sustainable Development.” Sustainable Development. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP
Environment. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Scott_Cloutier/publication/279062914_Sustainability_Thro
ugh_Happiness_A_Framework_for_Sustainable_Development/links/5745e79d08aea45ee8560fd
d.pdf
Ilioi, B. (2014). "Phoenix's Ambitious Plan to End Food Waste.” US Chamber of Commerce
Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/blog/post/phoenix-sambitious-plan-end-food-waste/42170
Reid, B. (2013). “Phoenix is Making Haste to Hit Green-Waste Goal.” The Republic. Retrieved
from http://archive.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/20130520phoenix-green-wastegoal.html
Savethefood.com
http://www.savethefood.com/?gclid=CjwKEAiA6YDBBRDwtpTQnYzx5lASJAC57ObM25jNS
fMCuLWn3FmlOydg4NS9FwVOxpvwey8nHe1RQRoCtRXw_wcB
Watch My Waste. (2017). Retrieved from https://watchmywaste.com.au/food-waste-greenhousegas-calculator/
Wiek, A (2015). Solving Sustainability Problems- Tools for a New Generation of Sustainability
Professionals. School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

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