Thursday, October 15, 2026
Every Saturday morning at the North Merrick Public Library, residents gather with buckets of food scraps, ready to turn their kitchen waste into something useful. But between chopping vegetable peelings and mixing compost, they’re cultivating something else — community connections.
Neighbors who might not otherwise meet spend these mornings under a tree, sharing stories as they work, Lauren Krueger, co-founder of Community Composting Counts, said.
The organization, in partnership with the library, inaugurated the composting site with a Pumpkin Smash in October 2025 before launching weekly operations in April. Since then the program has collected more than 1,000 pounds of food scraps and drawn 23 participating families.
For Krueger, a Merrick resident, the goal was to create a community-run initiative that would give residents an active role in reducing waste and a sense of ownership over the project. “You wouldn’t have this without the community, and the community already feels ownership of the library,” she said. “I think that extends the feeling to the compost site.”
Krueger’s interest in composting began near the end of the pandemic, when she started researching recycling in the Town of Hempstead and where Long Island’s waste ends up.
“From there, I kind of decided that food waste, since it makes up about a third of solid waste overall, was a really important way to attack all the stuff that we’re incinerating and landfilling,” she said.
She contacted organizations and visited composting sites across the Island to learn more about the process. Although she initially considered East Meadow Farm as a potential location, she eventually turned to the library, which offered unused outdoor space and a steady stream of visitors.
“If you’re already coming to the library to return your books and pick up new things,” she said, “why not bring your food scraps along?”
In 2024, Krueger approached the library with the proposal. Library Director Jacqueline Perez said she immediately welcomed the idea.
“Sharing resources is what libraries do best, and environmental stewardship fits naturally with that mission,” Perez said. “A community composting site felt like an extension of what we already offer, and Lauren’s enthusiasm and clear plan made it an easy idea to get behind.”
After the library’s board of trustees unanimously approved the proposal, Krueger enlisted the help of Mason Tso, a Boy Scout from Troop 225 who was looking for an Eagle Scout project. Mason raised money for the materials and built the site’s three-bin structure with his father, completing it in August 2025.
Around the same time, Krueger also connected with Kimberly Wright at a climate-focused fellowship, and the two began working together to develop the initiative. They now oversee its operations through Community Composting Counts.
Each Saturday, residents bring five-gallon buckets of fruit and vegetable scraps to the site, where volunteers weigh and record the waste before chopping it into smaller pieces and mixing it with dry materials, including leaves and sawdust. Once the scraps have fully decomposed, the finished compost is made available for residents to use in their gardens.
“This belongs to the community, and they should have it back,” Krueger said.
Participants commit to one volunteer shift each month, helping maintain the bins and guiding others through the process.
Lisa Luchsinger, a first-time composter, learned about the initiative during a visit to the library. “Lauren and Kimberly had a table set up in the lobby and were sharing the information with patrons as they came in,” she said. “I thought it was a great initiative and wanted to be involved.”
Since joining, Luchsinger has changed the way she deals with kitchen waste, setting aside compostable material rather than throwing it away. “Many food scraps are compostable,” she said. “Instead of tossing the scraps, I store it for the compost.”
For fellow participant Erika Lichy, the practice has become so routine that she found herself looking for a compost bin while vacationing in Maine.
“At first I had to get used to not tossing usable food scraps but now it’s second nature,” Lichy wrote in an email to the Herald. “As a matter of fact, I’m writing this from a vacation rental in Maine, and found myself looking for my composting bin while cooking.”
The Saturday sessions have also become a social gathering for participants. “The process itself takes about 10 minutes, but everyone is very friendly and helps each other through the process, and we end up chatting and sharing stories,” Luchsinger said. “It’s a fun way to connect with the community.”
Lichy described volunteering as a combination of environmental service, physical activity and opportunities to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones.
Kelly Rechsteiner, the library’s community relations librarian, has noticed the camaraderie among participants of different ages and backgrounds. “I’ve been able to be a part of some really great conversations too,” she said. “Perhaps the compost bin is the new water cooler?”
Rechsteiner initially worried that the site would produce unpleasant odors or attract rodents, but she said that neither has been an issue. “I came to one of their Saturday meetups and they were chopping up watermelon rinds, and it just smelled like summer,” she said.
The composters now collect about 100 pounds of food scraps each week, which Krueger hopes will continue to grow. But she considers the change in their habits an even greater accomplishment.
“The biggest thing right now is that none of these people were composting,” she said. “… For the most part, these are people who have never really interacted with their food scraps in any way other than throwing them out with the rest of the garbage.”
For Luchsinger, participating has brought a new awareness of how much food goes to waste. “It’s pretty incredible,” she said. “It opened my eyes to how much food is thrown out in general.”
Looking ahead, Krueger and Wright hope to establish similar sites at other Long Island libraries and explore partnerships with schools and community organizers to educate more residents about reducing food waste.
In North Merrick, organizers are continuing their outreach efforts, with another Pumpkin Smash planned for November to introduce more residents to composting.
Perez said she hopes the partnership will encourage other libraries to follow suit. “I hope this continues to be a small, steady way our community takes care of its environment together,” she said. “And perhaps our partnership can serve as a model so other libraries undertake composting initiatives as well.”
