hello and welcome to be poets my name is sally baker and i'm the host of we poets we poets is a poetry show for boys and girls between the ages of six and thirteen so if you would like to be on the program please have your parents are your school teacher call me also we're always looking for interns between the ages of thirteen and ninety eight to be our interns and produce our program each week so if you'd like to be an intern please have your parents or your school teacher call me and i'm always looking for adult guest to come and tell young people something about their jobs or careers tonight we have a special guest and her name is miss nancy damning she is a sustainability initiatives program manager at the o unified school district in oakland and i'm going to be interviewing two poets first and then i'm going to be interviewing miss deming second so here we go with our first poet it's the young lady hi how are you tonight good good could you look there camera three and tell us your name and holloed you are and what grade you're in please ellie i'm twelve and i'm in sixth grade great what do you like best about being in sixth grade probably having all the classes and having on more friends good what's your favorite subject in school probably history history and why is it important we learn about history well just because it's good to learn about the past and how our ancestors were great great and what kind of work do you think you'd like to do when you graduate from high school and college something to do with animals or something have you worked at a shelter for animals you know what i'm going to start good and what have some of the job duties you think you'll do there at the shelter probably hear your point please lives were lost that was the cost of living down in birmingham the sun was shining brightly and covering the heat of mankind with a blanket of hope the sky was as blue as the ocean for girls skipped on the street of hatred walked into the house of holy lusted hatred in all directions and for a little girl's was lives were lost so on from the earthly desires to serenity of heaven the devil's hearts of steel drove a wedge between heaven and earth leaving the marks of evil behind for a little girl who did nothing wrong burst through death's door open too soon will the devil's ever rest and fear and loathing cease to exist hearts have said this spreads quickly to friends and family for pearl's value but no longer a real grade to help us wonderful have you submitted that for any poetry contest we did it for english class that was great i hope you got an a plus all next year what else do you like to write about when you write your stories and points i just like to write about whatever comes to mind and you keep a journal every day not every day but sometimes i what tell me some more about yourself do you play a musical instrument or dance or what well i like singing in i'm taking that drama class school good and what roles do you like to play in drama all the rule this time has one line which i'm kind of happy play football at school football that's kind of rough for a get or have never been injured i don't like really play the sport but i like there i go back and forth oh i see i see so there's nothing else you want to tell us about you  really ok well thank you so much for coming you did a real good job and keep up reading those wonderful points and stories thank you and now we have another pretty young lady she's going to tell us who she is and there we're going to talk hello young lady hi how are you tonight could go have a look there camera three and tell us your name and how old you are and what grade you're in please my name is mira and i'm eleven and i'm in sixth grade good and what do you like best about being in the sixth that's right and who is your best friend ellie ellie and i'm so glad the both of you could come tonight this is the second time you've been on right good and i know you like to write yeah what have you written for me tonight i wrote a all right let's hear your point please chicken parm crowing roosters hatching chicks incubator colorful tales kale eaters eggs or delicious not very good flyers eggs sometimes so you have eggs every morning for breakfast well not every morning not every morning do you sell them no no ok now tell me some more about yourself  i love drawing and writing and i like singing and i like running and i think that's it do you belong to any sports teams no not jet would you like to play sport not really not really you're not into that how about drama you like drama sort of what do you like to play i don't think i've ever been in a well that's good that's good and when you graduate from high school or college what career do you think you'd like to pursue maybe a teacher or a writer or an artist all that's good and what grade school would you like to teach small children  a middle school kids or college kids elementary school elementary why do you think you'd like to teach elementary kids they're probably easier to handle then sixth graders or high schoolers and  elementary school is like it's the it's like where you can have fun it's like probably the fun school that's good that's good and have you done any traveling of those places we went to new new york and hawaii or but hawaii was fun yeah all that's good in a country if you'd like to visit maybe later on probably africa oh why would you want to go to africa because they have such exotic animals and they have the landscape is really beautiful oh yes that's good that's good now is there anything else you'd like to tell me about you that i didn't ask you just anything about you know argued only child you know how many brothers and sisters i have a little brother just one little brother and you help take care of him sort of sort of ok well there's nothing else you want to tell me about you i want to thank you you did a wonderful job too i really liked your boy and keep up the good work  job hi nancy good evening how are you today i'm doing very well thank you good i really enjoyed the two girls one is your daughter one is my daughter and her earlier it right they did a wonderful job thank you for bringing them my pleasure and now i wan find out all about you and your wonderful job so my first question is how did the green gloves program start well so for the school district oakland unified they've been recycling for some ten years and that's been going pretty well in some of the schools are kind of doing grassroots efforts to do cafeteria sorting that would involve the recycling and mainly getting the food scraps out of landfills so doing sorting systems in there and one of the schools made a video called scrap it and so they hosted this large meeting brown table gathering at their school may invite a lot of key stakeholders within the district and community partners and at that time i tended that round table and i was trying to find a way for me to help the school district bring on more environmental sustainability initiatives and from that roundtable gathering one of the discussions was you know because there custodian was a huge component for that program running while he was part of the video and he monitored it during the lunch time and he even spoke at the round table explaining what his involvement was and one of the guests said well can't you train go around of the other schools and you know let other custodians know so then we thought well let's have a meeting of all the and talk about these things so i help the school district host its first symposium that was and then prior to the supposing the custodian services director found some outside funding and to where it would fund my position and start running with the green globes program where it was going into schools and helping them set up sorting programs for the cafeteria in the classroom exercycle great are you a teacher no no not a teacher would you like to be a teacher i want kids you kidding and that's one of the perks of the job is you know understanding the whole recycling and composting and explaining that to everybody because it can get a little complicated so explaining it in terms of folks can understand i can imagine now my second question what does the program look like so setting up the system in the cafeteria so the simple as possible and so it runs kind of in its effect of way so we set up the bins that are color coded bins and we have the scion age and set it up in a way that makes sense for the kids to sort their waste and then we also have mix classroom  recycling as well so it's kind of the same thing setting up the bin and getting the science and setting up the system so that way everybody's involved and what are the three bins so for the cafeteria it goes through from where they dump out their thing in their fork with a spoon and then empty their any of their food waste their napkin and then they stack the tray for another key point to this too is we also have a future bid so if a child doesn't eat their apple that they have gotten from the mail program or their kids d it goes in the future bin and then students can choose from that during the lunch time other piece to great now what does the program do for the students the school the community and the district so the program provides an infrastructure that any school can just adapt relatively easy so provides with the kind of educational material allows for the custodians in nutritional services staff be kind of a medical part of the students experience during the cafeteria time to where it's a learning experience you know they're learning about what type of ways they have and that it's a valuable resource and how to sort it that then carries on that message with students because then they're learning new habits and the correct habits and hopefully they're taking those back home with them and teaching their family and then that can kind of spread out to the larger community to make a difference great great now how does a school get started once they would contact me and then i would come out and just kind of do a check on you know how their cafeteria set up each one's a little unique and what works with the flow that they're ready have and what steps they might already have in place that we can work off of and then finding folks that are going to be at the school to kind of be leaders on it because it takes somebody that's going to watch over and check in with a custodian a nutritional services staff in the principal and and then we just get the bins and make sure that we try to get some student monitors and a program rolling off good now would you like to give your phone number your e mail it'll come up on the screen but if you'd like to give it to our audience ok of the little differences but it makes a huge difference for the program itself is the district has always had a spork package so it's a spork you know it's a fork spoon mole type thing and it's kind of flimsy and then it comes  plastic wrap and it has a straw and a napkin on the straws like a coffee stirrer so you straw which you know milk comes through very you know a small amount and then a napkin but it's not really a very usable  napkin and we're finding that when the kids were going up to the sorting station there was a complication when they're trying to pull it apart in a lot of kids want to pull the napkin out those in the compost and these extra pieces and  the nutrition services director found a vendor to where we can get the dispensers so we have a fork dispenser spoon dispenser and a napkin so the child actually can choose which items they want and then get a full size napkin at same time so then this way reduces a lot on the waist because if they're having pizza well maybe all they need is the napkin right you know pizza and apple and a milk and we don't replace the straws figuring that the students can drink out of the carton and we're hoping that the students will be drinking a little bit more because they're taking full drinks versus the sips so it's been a nice nice element a lot of are schools starting this set up  kind of hydration stations like water stations some of the high schools they were going through a lot of plastic water bottles for the water that was given out for the mail program so now we have these water stations and we can so that makes a big difference as well great great now what are your future plans for the program so our immediate work that we're doing right now that we're hoping to roll out before the end of the school year and then start into next school year is a food  so that surplus food that would go into the like that food share so if it's a sealed up into a lot or the milk that we're developing outside partnerships so that we can donate that food wonderful folks who can make use of it  or anything else you'd like to put out to our audience before we have the two girls come back on and give us a demonstration while i encourage everybody to always recycle and you know food scrap you know to make use of their  they've got to be able to collect all their food scraps that they have coming out of the kitchen and another big piece is monitoring the food that is purchased so that there's not food waste on that side and really think about all those resources and how things are package with make really big difference on our landfills i mean it's you know just going to thinking through on the sorting as far as with the paper and you know there's many times when you know i'm out walking and i'll look the see what's going over spilling out of people's bins and i'm like well they're not sorting that's right that's right do you have other staff that help you or you are a one woman team well one woman team but with a lot of help i'm going in the custodian to nutrition services staff there's so many folks that are you know the girls on the daily basis during the war and then outside community partners and folks that are in both of those two different departments very supportive and helpful it's definitely a team effort now how about this summer will this run through the summer to their program depends upon the school site oh you know depending upon if they have the capacity to run the sorting program but we've been going through the green gloves it's been two and a half years but with the different elements it's been going for many years i mention a fair amount of schools aground well we're out of time for this segment we're going to have the two girls come on and then they're going to give us a demonstration so thank you so much boys and girls ladies and gentlemen stay tuned we're coming back with our two poets and they're going to give us a demonstration we'll be back in just a us could you tell us what they're going to demonstrate for us well for our program and this is recognized for any ages on sorting is having somebody it's monitoring the system just kind standing there off to the side or being kind a little more involved but just kind of overseeing that things are getting sorted because once something goes in the wrong bin people are very visual so even though it's a milk carton and if it starts going in the landfill people go by that first versus the sign so if there's monitors that that's there david kay good thing than the contamination goes down significantly and that way we get a better sorting system so we try to encourage the schools to develop a student monitor program so that way students are monitoring during the eating times so these two girls are  made up and then this is the logo for the green gloves program that is done on there as well and both of the girls have the grabbers and that way if somebody does put a milk carton in landfill it's easy to fix it fairly simply and they're not having to stick their hands and and the backs of the vest also has a image on it as well and the vests identify the students that are on duty it kind of gives them a certain leadership role and other staff know who the monitors are and you see how many monitors do you have on duty to principle the size of the school for how many like if they have two stations then they may have four monitors  maybe just two monitors somewhere between like two and four is ideal and holler the mom a volunteer monitors selected to the teacher select them it depends upon the each school sometimes the students kind of volunteer on their own and then the custodian or the cafeteria monitor identifies the kids are interested some schools they'll assign you know certain classes and then the teachers have to send down a couple students varies and how long is the lunch hour usually is about twenty to thirty minutes per lunch time but some schools can have one lunch period for lunch periods as a cycle all the students  meal times now are they vest always the green the bright green color yep ok well i want to thank you ladies for coming everybody did a wonderful job and this is such a good program that you're doing and i hope people will call you and have you come out to their school and the set up a program in their school good so thank you all for coming and let's all wave goodbye to our audience goodbye everybody and thank you for watching bye by