Back from a break, and better than ever. 

After a pause during the pandemic, the composting program at Hampden Meadows School has returned and is thriving. 

Students who help run the program say their classmates have done a great job turning their food scraps into rich and healthy compost that is used all across the school’s campus. 

Thalia Baillie is one of the student leaders with the program. 

“We started it back up last year,” Baillie said, during a lunch period late last month. “We had these great bins in back, but we weren’t using them.”

Hampden Meadows School Principal Gino Sangiuliano said the program had been paused when Covid hit, but with help from some parent volunteers, it restarted last year. He praised the efforts of Kerry O’Neill and Brett Brumbaugh, who helped last year, and Becky Iacono, who is assisting the program this year.

Sangiuliano said that as part of the program, students who want to participate need to fill out an application and write an essay about why they want to join the composting club.

“I am so impressed with how aware our students are of the environmental issues that we face,” Sangiuliano wrote. “Many of our students have an even better understanding of the challenges our planet faces than some adults do. They want to, and know, that they can make a real difference. I am especially proud of the leadership and collaboration that our students show when working on composting.”

Baillie and her fellow fifth grade program organizer Kolten Kirkpatrick both spoke about the larger implications of composting. 

“We can help the earth by not putting so many things in the trash,” Baillie said. “The state dump is supposed to fill up by 2040, so we’re going to try to do more composting, so we can try to help people to slow that process down.

“I feel that there’s so much pollution and stuff going on. What’s nice is that we’re able to save the earth and help the trees out here,” she said. 

Baillie pointed to the trees located just outside the front windows of the Hampden Meadows School cafeteria. The fifth-grader said compost made at the school is placed around trees and bushes on the campus. 

Kirkpatrick said students at Hampden Meadows School learn about the environment and the benefits of composting.

“For the fourth-graders, they have someone from (Rhode Island) Resource Recovery come and give a presentation. That’s where I learned about it,” Kirkpatrick said. 

Each day, in between the lunch periods, students like Kirkpatrick and Baillie spearhead the food scrap collection effort. They direct their classmates to dump uneaten fruits and vegetables into five-gallon buckets. Then, when the lunch periods are over, the student leaders bring the food scraps to the compost bins located toward the rear of Hampden Meadows School. 

Students regularly mix the food scraps with leaves and other natural debris and before long, the compost has turned into a rich soil. Kirkpatrick said some of the compost is used around the school’s campus and some of it is bagged for students to bring home and use in their gardens. 

Kirkpatrick said some days the food scrap buckets fill up faster than others.

“It depends how kids are acting that day. It’s really a mix every day,” he said. 

Sangiuliano said some of the other schools in the district partner with the Barrington Farm School, bringing food scraps to the Federal Road location. But at Hampden Meadows School, all the composting takes place right on campus. 

“…with the wooden bins, we have the means to do it ourselves,” he said.