How do you engage a community to better manage autumn leaves?
A case study in community engagement and how input leads to innovation
How can you make it easier for residents to manage their autumn leaves? That is the question enFocus is working to answer, in partnership with the Elkhart County Commissioners and Elkhart County Landfill. In the unincorporated areas of Elkhart County, residents are allowed to burn their leaves. However, the burning of leaves releases pollutants into the air and aggravates the respiratory systems of many people. As a result, leaf burning is an issue of public concern in Elkhart County, and we are working with our sponsors to identify and pilot cost-effective alternatives to leaf burning.
Once we had a good general knowledge of the universe of leaf management alternatives available, it was time to think about which were best for Elkhart County. We started that process by assembling a Task Force of individuals in Elkhart County who were experts on the topic of leaf management. Our Task Force has representation from groups such as the Elkhart County Health Department, Purdue Extension, Michiana Area Council of Governments, Concord Community Schools, and citizen leaders … and of course our project sponsor. The Task Force has guided enFocus’ work to make sure that the leaf management pilots we design are realistic for Elkhart County.
With the Task Force’s guidance, we executed three public meetings on the topic of leaf management alternatives. We presented six potential alternatives to the public, and then gave them time to provide feedback or propose new ideas. We had about thirty members of the public attend our meetings, and we were impressed by the creativity of the group. We left the meetings with valuable “tweaks” to our proposed alternatives, such as making the landfill drop off area more convenient for residents … as well as ideas for fun new alternatives, such as a service group leaf collection competition or educating residents at high school football games. We were also impressed by the neighborly attitudes and dialogue that began to develop during the meetings, as people sought to listen and understand one another. These meetings were covered by various news media outlets (read all about it here, here, here, and here), and we’re grateful as this provides the public an additional opportunity to engage with our work.
After the public meetings, our project moved from “identifying alternatives” to “piloting alternatives.” We worked with our sponsor and the Task Force to select the three ideas we felt most confident putting into action. This spring we will be offering a compost bin and mulching pilot program, as well as an adult education program. These programs will be evaluated during the summer, and expanded starting in fall 2018. We will also be designing a service group leaf collection competition and a K-12 education lesson, to debut in fall 2018.
This project has been an exercise in engaging the community. Like many of our projects, we believe innovation starts with understanding a challenge and involving the community in the creation of the solution, and we’re doing our part to reduce leaf burning in a way that is cost-effective yet meaningful.
You can read more about this project here:
