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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Lou Reyes, Compost Project Manager at Queens Botanical Garden
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Lou Reyes, Compost Project Manager at Queens Botanical Garden, testified about the importance of their composting program and requested increased funding. The Queens Botanical Garden has been operating a composting site for 31 years and is currently the only processing site in Queens.
- They received $450,000 in funding, which allowed for three staff positions and internships.
- Despite starting late due to funding delays, they managed to service all 15 districts in Queens through material distribution, workshops, and drop-off site management.
- Reyes requested a 22% increase in funding to $550,000 to expand their master composter workshops and increase organic intake capacity.
Lou Reyes
2:55:56
name is Luregas.
2:55:57
I'm the compost project mine manager at Queens Botanical Garden.
2:56:01
And we're actually one of the first sites that started composting in New York City Thirty One Years ago.
2:56:07
And I were very appreciative of the $450,000 that you allocated so that we can continue operating, which is unfortunately the only processing site in in Queens right now after big reuse loss at site, which was something very unfortunate.
2:56:29
We we were able to have three three staff lines as well as several internships thanks to this funding.
2:56:40
We're participating in the Master Composer which has had participation numbers similar to those of when it was funded by the SNY.
2:56:53
We give me a second.
2:56:57
Sorry.
2:56:59
This year, even though we started late because of the funding, of the stream of funding, we actually have managed to service all 15 districts, which is not an easy task given the size of Queens.
2:57:12
But we service them by either distributing material, doing workshops, and obviously by servicing various drop off sites in Queens.
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Most of the drop off sites in Queens are serviced by us.
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So we've included in our request a 20 a 22% increase.
2:57:39
It would come to 550,000 and that would allow us to increase our master composer workshops and we would also like, have the ability to do more more organic intake.
2:57:53
Sorry.
2:57:55
Yeah.
2:57:56
Thank you so much.