Local nonprofit describes food‑rescue work; city staff outlines limited compost pilot options

Selena Darrow, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Rooted In, outlined the organization’s food‑recovery and meal programs and urged the Sustainability Commission to pursue education and donation strategies to reduce local food waste. City staff later reported that a full curbside organics collection pilot is not feasible now and said the most practical near‑term test would be composting for city operations at the Brown County Wildlife Sanctuary.

Darrow told the commission she launched Rooted In two years ago and that the group both recovers surplus food for meals and distributes recovered foods to partner pantries. “The mission we have today is the mission from iHeart. It's to build a community table that nourishes and uplifts, and we bring access to local nutritious foods as a tool to transform health and well‑being,” she said. She described three programs: a monthly “Nourishment for All” meal program that she said produces “approximately 400 individually packaged meals” for pantry partners, a recipe database for households, and a “Glean team” that recovers garden, orchard and on‑farm surplus.…