Sustainable Flatbush terribly mismanaged this program at their location last year. While they collected hundreds of bags of leaves from off-site, and then left many of the paper bags of leaves to decompose in place, they did not assist the Church in cleaning up the leaves that fell on the church grounds (the Project Leaf Drop day last year was before most of the on-site oaks had dropped their leaves). From October until mid spring of last year, there were drifts of leaves blowing around the grounds, onto the sidewalks, and onto the yards of neighbor houses surrounding the Communal Garden. The first step should be in assisting the church to handle the leaves that naturally fall before inviting the community to bring in more leaves. 

I hope Sustainable Flatbush does a better job this year. 

Concerned Community Member apparently doesn’t realize that most of the
bags collected last year were from the church property itself. The total
number was 124 bags, and the majority were contributed by the church
groundskeeper.

Now that we have built a composting system on the
site, leaves will be put to use quickly. It is the groundskeeper’s
responsibility to deal with leaves on the church property, and having a
place to compost them will make his job easier while putting the
church’s yard waste to use rather than sending it to a landfill.

Concerned
Community Member is always welcome to turn their concern into action by
volunteering on a compost day! Consult our website’s calendar for dates
and times. 
http://sustainableflatbush.org

Why so much negativity? It is very easy to watch from the sidelines, do nothing and criticize. Sustainable Flatbush has done a lot of good work through volunteer labor. We all have busy lives, but only some of us actually pitch in. I am all for more pitching in and less criticism.  Thank you Sustainable Flatbush for all that you have done over the years. 

Wow, so commenting factually about what’s going on in my community is now “harmful”? 

You comments exemplify the “anything is better than nothing” mentality that some people have about Flatbush. Those of us who are active participants and contributors in our community ask  simply that organizations have a positive impact on the neighborhood. 

The solution I have proposed is don’t ask local area residents (or CSAs as had been the case last year with the rotting trash cans compost mis-fire) to drop off leaves and green matter for composting if facilities are not yet in place to handle them responsibly. Pretty simple.