Mindy Jaffe

Proposed by Jann Boxold and Heidi Ho, The Garden Club of Honolulu,
Zone XII
 Mindy Jaffe is an environmental champion who has devoted her time to educating Hawaii’s keiki (children) to be proud stewards of the land. She instructs 2,200 students annually about the science of food waste, thermal composting, and vermicomposting. She sought to address the overwhelming problem of food waste in Hawaii schools by introducing the Zero Waste program to teach the students to recycle daily food waste they do not eat and to turn it into compost. Their mulch 
is used in school gardens where 
crops are grown, harvested, and eaten. Caring for the environment becomes a daily practice for students. The program was first introduced at Pearl City High School, which subsequently was honored with the US EPA Food Recovery Challenge award. The program was expanded to five elementary schools and one intermediate school, creating the Windward Zero Waste School Hui, co-founded by Jaffe. Since 2014, students have diverted over 300,000 pounds of food waste from landfills.