An anonymous donor has temporarily saved the GrowNYC compost collection sites at the city’s greenmarkets after Mayor Eric Adams’ budget cuts threatened to shut them down entirely, the organization told Gothamist on Wednesday.
GrowNYC spokesperson Andrina Sanchez declined to say how much the donor gave the organization, but said it was enough to keep the compost collection program running until the end of June, when the city’s annual budget is due.
The gift also ensures all 53 of GrowNYC’s compost employees who had faced layoffs by Dec. 18 will keep their jobs through June, Sanchez said
“This fantastic news allows GrowNYC to avoid imminent layoffs and keeps our program operational as we continue to advocate for the restoration of community composting,” Sanchez said in a statement.
The nonprofit’s 2022 financial report showed it spent $2 million on Zero Waste programs, which include GrowNYC staffers running collection sites at more than 50 farmers markets and farm stands around the city.
Sanchez did not respond to a question about how much city funding GrowNYC receives for its compost collection program.
The loss of city funding for GrowNYC was part of a larger sanitation department cut that took away $3 million earmarked for several organizations that run community compost programs. All city agencies were ordered by Adams to slash 5% of their budgets last month, which the mayor said was necessary due to costs associated with the migrant crisis.
A request for comment to the sanitation department was not immediately returned on Wednesday.
GrowNYC compost coordinator Chris Black said he had expected to be out of a job within days.
“Earlier this week, we heard that our last day of operation would be this coming weekend,” Black said while running the group’s compost site at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Midtown. “And so we would be laid off the following week. And then we got the news that this grant basically staves that off.”
“But the process itself has…
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