Welcome everybody to today's Field of Fork webinar. My name is Scott Swanson. I will be your host today, because Julie is our presenter. So we wanna thank you for joining. I'm with NDSU Agriculture Communication for those that don't know. Today's Field of Fork webinar brought to you as always by North Dakota State University Extension. This is the seventh year we have done this series and we're so glad you joined us today. The next slide shows our upcoming webinars. Next week we'll have Share the Bounty, Gardening to Fight Hunger in Our Communities with Esther McGinnis. And on March 30th, we got Developing Food Safety with Byron from University of Nebraska. The program is sponsored in part with grant funding from the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. So we ask you that you complete the short online survey that will be emailed right after today's webinar. And as a thank you, Julie will provide prizes to the lucky winners of the random drawings. So be sure to put your complete address on the follow-up form, including city, state, and zip code. So again, welcome to today's webinar and I am pleased to introduce today's speaker, Julie Gard Robinson, is a professor and food nutrition specialist at NDSU Extension. She develops materials for people of all ages and does research and outreach in nutrition, food preservation, and food safety. She has written a weekly column, Prairie Fair, since 1997. Well, thank you very much, Scott. And thanks to all of you for joining us today. We wouldn't have these webinars if we didn't have participants. So I thank you for being ongoing participants. And it's great to see people from all over, even Canada. So welcome, everyone. So today I'm going to cover a lot of things and I'm gonna do things maybe a little differently than some of the other presenters. I want you to be actively engaged in what we're doing. So I will be asking you some chat questions from time to time. I might ask you to raise your hand using the more button or the extra button that we have. So we'll make it as interactive as we can. Keep you awake. It's two o'clock and it's the week of daylight savings. So I will be visiting with you primarily about food waste and strategies on how to avoid wasting food. We'll spend a little time talking about food recalls. I'm going to spend just a little time talking about food preservation because one of our future speakers is going to cover that in great detail. And then I will talk about composting and some resources to raise awareness. And I do want to acknowledge Midwest Dairy Council for providing me with some of the slides that I adapted in their honoring the harvest program. So let's get started. So I have an assignment for you. I am a teacher, a professor. So at the end of today's talk, I want each of you to write down two or more action steps that you could take to help with this food waste issue and then put that list on your refrigerator or you could text yourself on your phone. And then in a few weeks, check back on your progress. So that's your assignment and I don't need to know what you put. So let's start with some definitions. There are two things that we can consider. There's food loss shown in the picture and food waste. So food loss can include several things. You can see that microbiological spoilage issue on the left with that orange. Food waste is throwing away the food. That's perfectly edible. Food waste is an ongoing concern in the US and probably across the world. So if we were to break down the different amounts of food waste that we would, or waste in general that we would find in landfills, I'd like you to look at this pie chart and you'll see the one circled. Food accounts for 21% of the landfill. That's a lot. And other things include rubber tires, leather, textiles, 12% paper, paper board, 15%. Yard trimmings, 8%, metals, nine, glass, five, plastics, 18, wood, eight. But food, 21%, that's a lot. And much of that food is edible. So here's your first chat question. So go to the chat. I know you know where it is. So how much food in pounds or ounces does the average consumer throw away each day? Okay, I see some different amounts. Anywhere from ounces to several pounds, 15 pounds. That's a big one. All right, we're seeing lots of differences in opinion. And this is what I found. The average person throws away about 1.1 pounds of food daily and that adds up to about 401.5 pounds per year. So that's a lot of food. And in fact, very unfortunate statistic, 40% of food produced in the US is wasted, 40%. So if we look at food loss by food group, you can see I've written them out in red or the font is red, 66% of food loss comes from grain products, fruits, vegetables, and dairy. And just the three food groups, fruit, vegetables, and dairy accounts for 33%. And if you wanna interpret what each of these numbers means, there's no test on this, but the first number in each of the little call out boxes stands for billions of pounds of food. And then the second number is the percent of the total. So again, 66% comes from those four food groups. We may think that we're throwing out a lot of eggs or meat or those sorts of things, but actually fruits and vegetables and dairy account for the most, probably because they're the most perishable. So where does all this food waste happen? You might think it's the institutional food service, restaurants, full service restaurants, grocery stores, industrial, industrial is the best as far as not wasting food. Who's the worst? It's the consumers in their residences. Residential food waste accounts for 45%. So that's why I'd like each of us to think about what we could do and to set some goals for ourselves. So all this wasted food has a lot of consequences. Certainly there are economic consequences. There are environmental consequences and food security consequences. And I hope you take time to listen to Esther McGinnis' program next week because she's talking about donating food to food pantries, food that we grow. But certainly all of these factors are part of the consequences. So if we look specifically at economic impact of 160 billion pounds of food at a rate of a dollar per pound, that's $166 billion. And then it costs another billion dollars to dispose of all of this food. I think we can do better than that. And then there's food security impact. I'm sure most of you have heard that by 2040, between 2040 and 2050 we may have about 9 billion people or 9.7 billion people actually. And that is gonna take a lot more food to feed all these people. So we'll need to increase our production by 70% to feed the world. And those of you who live in the Midwest which I think that most of us do on this particular webinar, we will need to produce more food where we exist. So you can see it's an upward trajectory that we're seeing in the next, not so long. 2050 isn't all that long ahead of us. So as I said, food insecurity is a huge issue. In fact, one in seven Americans doesn't have enough food. They're food insecure. And that comes from feeding America. And that's a great place to look for more information about any of these topics. So if you just Google feeding America you will find lots of additional information on this topic. So these are some tips to avoid wasting food. First of all, be aware of how much food you throw away. Maybe put all the food that you were throwing away in a bucket or something over a course of days and then really become aware of the foods that you're throwing. Are you not eating those bananas or those apples or drinking all the milk or whatever it happens to be. But awareness is the first step. We are enticed by grocery stores. I just finished a column. Scott mentioned I've written a weekly column called Prairie Fair for many, many years now. And this week's column is about how grocery stores entice us to buy more. There's a lot of psychology involved in the way a grocery store is set up or a supermarket is set up. We don't want to buy more food than we can use before it spoils.  Ponder if you're throwing away things. If you're buying in bulk that might prompt you to be unable to use all that food before it goes to waste. And I know it's not particularly fun to plan meals perhaps but that is a good strategy to use and to write out a shopping list. Check your fridge and pantry and think about what you're buying and when it will be eaten. We have many, many resources on the NDSU Extension site to help you with meal planning, to help you with food storage, food preservation as do extension organizations all across this country.  But I will tell you that this was a light bulb event during the pandemic when people learned that they can indeed freeze milk. You can freeze dairy foods. It's not gonna be as great as it was when you started but it is possible to freeze it and that is a way to avoid food waste. We're facing increased prices and groceries and lots of items right now. So that's another reason why we don't wanna waste food. Use your freezer. And then if you're eating out you might wanna request smaller portions.  You can certainly freeze those leftovers whether you made them yourself or whether you bought them at a restaurant. So you bought your, you had dinner out for example you can freeze those too. So these are some of the strategies you might think about as you're making your list and putting it on your refrigerator about some strategies that you could do to help avoid food waste. So next I wanted to visit with you about food recalls. So don't do this with a little cartoon ahead. I often use this when I am teaching classes. It's a joke. It's only the Erickson's why don't you just use the recalled hamburger meat? You don't wanna do that but I thought it was cute. So let's talk about three different types of recalls. And I am guessing that each of you has certainly heard of meat recalls or salad recalls like the pre-packaged salads. Lots of recalls have happened in the last many years. And there are three classes of recalls. So if you hear or something like there's a class one recall on ground beef or packaged salads. Class one means that the products could cause serious injury or death. Class two recalls and I'll provide some more examples of each of these in the coming slides. Class two recalls are for products that might cause serious injury or temporary illness. So not as serious as class one. And class three recalls are for products that are unlikely to cause injury or illness but that violate the Food and Drug Administration Regulations. So again, there are three categories of recalls. You may hear class two recall in the news some way but I wanted you to be aware of what the differences are. So what does a recall mean anyway? It means that the food producer or it could be a government agency takes the product off the market because there's reason to believe that it may cause harm to consumers. So here's your example of a class one recall. Let's say that there's a discovery of organisms such as the Bacteria Salmonella or a parasite such as Cyclospora found in a meat product or some other product. Class one that could cause very serious illness. It could cause death for some people. Class two recall, not quite as serious but you really wanna be careful. So there could be foreign objects like broken glass from perhaps the manufacturing company or metal or it could be plastic that has gotten into the product. So it's a foreign object. And class three and this could be very serious to people who have allergic responses. So this could be deadly to some people depending on whether or not they are allergic. But if you discover that there is a major allergen and it does not appear on the product label or there isn't that allergen statement correctly listed that could prompt a class three recall. Be aware of anyone in the viewing audience today is a food manufacturer. You really need to take all these things very seriously of course because no one wants to harm a consumer who might have your product. So the Food and Drug Administration regulates a lot of things including drugs, food, supplements to a lesser degree. But all of these products on the screen are subject to recall. That includes drugs, human and animal, medical devices, radiation emitting products, vaccines, blood, blood products, transplantable human tissue is under their jurisdiction, animal feed, cosmetics. And 80% of the foods eaten in the United States are subject to recall. So that's a lot of food, lots of different foods. So take these recall notices very seriously. We try to put out notification through our Facebook page for NDSU Extension Food and Nutrition about recalls. So you might wanna, if you're a Facebook user you could certainly like us or follow us on Facebook. And we do provide this regular ongoing information about recalls and lots of other things too. So stepping back to food allergens, products recalled due to an undeclared allergen may be harmful to anyone in your household with an allergy. So if that product has never been served, throw it away or return it for a refund. I'd be more along the lines, if you're not too far from the store to bring it back and the store will refund the money and the manufacturer will usually reimburse the store for the cost of that. If you have served the product, be sure to wash with soap and water any surfaces whether that's your plates, pots and pans, utensils or counters with which the product may have been in contact. So all of these can lead to cross-contamination. So allergens just like bacteria and moles and other microorganisms can lead to cross-contamination. So recalls due to bacteria and parasites could contaminate your kitchen. So here's a little bit more about that avoiding cross-contamination, which we have heard a lot about during the pandemic. So wash all cookware and utensils with hot soapy water, clear off your counters, clean them off, wash them again with hot soapy water and to take cleaning to the next level which is called sanitizing. You then can wipe any surfaces, shelves or drawers, rinse dishes and cookware with a sanitizing solution. So typically for your countertops, a diluted bleach solution would be a tablespoon, that's one tablespoon of unscented liquid chlorine bleach in a gallon of water. So you can barely tell that there's chlorine in that water. And typically for your plates and so on, you would have an even more diluted mixture but counters and objects that you might be interacting with touching your countertop, that's generally a tablespoon of unscented bleach per gallon. So here is another topic where I get a lot of questions myself, food product dates. So in the chat, type yes or no. Type yes, if you've ever been confused about a date on a food product, wondering how long you can eat that food. Okay, I'm seeing a lot of yeses that sometimes these food product dates can be confusing. Okay, let's take a look at what they mean. We'll start with the cartoon. These aren't just leftovers, Leroy. They're the best of 2006. And trust me, I have gotten calls where someone is cleaning out maybe their grandma's house or their parents' house and they find very, very old food. Might be home canned food. And they're wondering if they can still eat it. And in one case, the food was 40 years old. So at some point it is okay to throw away food. In fact, I think I sometimes give license to people to throw away food at times. So unfortunately, many consumers do misinterpret food date labels. And here's the good news, food industry experts in the U.S. say that not a single food safety, foodborne illness outbreak has been traced to eating past date food. Be aware if it says best if used by or best by or even used by in many cases, those are quality dates. That's a little different from an expiration date. So we'll talk a little more about that. Something that you may or may not know, but manufacturers do not have to put a date label on food products. In most cases, they're voluntary, not required. And most of the food product dates that you see on packages are not expiration dates, except on baby foods. You're gonna see baby foods carrying an expiration or a baby formula also having a date that you want to abide by that date. So if you have an infant in your house or you're taking care of a very young child who's eating baby food or consuming baby formula, you wanna abide by those dates because there could be some safety issues with consuming the food or nutritional issues.  So what do these labels do? They indicate freshness and companies want to convey to us as consumers when the product is at its peak. So all companies want us to know and want us to have the best possible freshness, the best possible quality. Quality and safety are two different things. Safety, if it's not safe, you could make us sick. If it's not high quality, it might not taste good, but very likely it won't make us sick. All right, so I have a chat question, another one for you. How long can you typically store eggs at home in your refrigerator? And you can indicate days or weeks. And how many weeks or how many days? And I will say that I have had calls from someone from people making cookies when I remember what they were making chocolate chip cookies. And the date on the egg carton was that day and they wanted to know if they could still make chocolate chip cookies safely. And based on your answers, I think you know the answer. Eggs, typically we say three to five weeks after the carton date. So eggs actually last a long time in your refrigerator, but over time, you're gonna find that they're not as high a quality. I wouldn't make souffles or some fancy dessert using those older eggs because they're not gonna be as high a quality, but they will be safe as long as we have stored them properly. So these are some of the definitions that you might, for labels, you might see on food products. So if you see best before or best buy, again, product is still safe. For best quality, best flavor, you would wanna use by that date. If you see a use buy date, might be best buy. There's a lot of different things because as I said, there's no real strong determination and legal authority on what the term has to be. Usually you have a one week grace period to consume the food. So if you have yogurt in your fridge or even milk, usually you have a week beyond that date as long as that food has stayed cold. And I've certainly personally eaten yogurt beyond a week after the date on the package. But if you want the best quality and also safety, try to use the products by the date, but don't be concerned if you can't quite eat it on that day that's listed on the package. Sell-by dates, these are sometimes called pull dates. These are store dates. And you might see these on dairy or eggs, sometimes meat products, that is the date meant for the store. And they would pull the product or put it on sale a couple of days before that date. But again, misinterpretation of some of these dates can lead people to throw them away while they are still okay to eat. So I have a couple of resources, several resources. So if you want, I think these are linked actually on the page. You'll be getting a link back to see the archives if you want. And I also asked our computer person to link our food storage guide and also our food freezing guide. The food freezing guide is very comprehensive. There's how to wrap meat, there's how to package almost anything on that particular guide. We also have, of course, lots of food preservation information available. So if you want to Google and see some of these resources, this is your commercial, NDSU Extension Food and Nutrition is what you Google. I'm also part of a 12-state group called NCFsyn, North Central Food Safety Extension Network. If you Google that, you will find resources for all our resources across the whole Midwestern area, 12 states. USDA also has a food keeper app. So if you ever want to do, if you like to use your smartphone and download apps, that's another way to look up this information. And it's credible information. It's one that USDA does promote on their website as well. So those are some resources for you to follow up with after this talk. So now we're gonna talk a little bit as I promised about composting. So it is a strategy to reduce or reuse wasted food. So I'm gonna have you find something else on our webinar screen. On my button or on my controls, it's under the more. So raise your hand by clicking on the hand if you have a compost bin. Wow, lots of you. I'm watching all the hands go up. Very good. Pat yourself on the back if you're a composter and if you're not, maybe that's a strategy you want to try. So what are the benefits of compost? There are many benefits. And I know if you're on the series, you probably are interested in gardening. And compost is one of the best ways that you can enrich your soil. And it also helps maintain moisture. It reduces the need for chemical fertilizer. It encourages production of beneficial bacteria and fungi. It reduces waste and it also reduces methane emissions. So there's a lot of good things. In fact, when we move from our older house into our newer house, that was one thing my husband brought along that surprised our real estate agent. He said, what are you doing? Well, I'm moving all my compost. So he took the bin with him and all the compost that was there. And we had so much that we were still using it. So what can you compost? Well, you can compost lots of things, some things you shouldn't. So food scraps and I provided several examples. So apple cores, leafy greens, onion skins, egg shells, banana peels, potatoes, coffee grounds, annual weeds. But I wanna be sure and note that you wanna be sure that these weeds have not gone to seed. Cause if you have seed heads in your compost and you use it in your garden, you're not gonna be happy. You're gonna have a lot of extra weeds cause those weed seeds can be pretty durable even in our extremely cold climate that we have in Fargo and beyond. So those are the greens. And then we can look at the brown. You can see the greens aren't necessarily all green. Browns typically are brown. So parts of trees, branches, leaves, of course they're green, but they're considered browns. Shredded paper, newspaper, sawdust, wood chips, cardboard, all of those are compostable. And we also need water. And damp is best for your compost bin, except in the winter it kind of rusts a while, but water is essential for the success of your living ecosystem. And I see our coffee filters okay to compost. Typically they would be as well. Yes. So what can't you compost? And why can't you compost them? Well, you don't wanna compost meat, fish, bones and scraps, fats, grease, lard or oils, dairy products, pet waste, yard trimmings that have been treated with chemicals because that will, those can persist a long time and could kill your plants that you're trying to grow with your compost. As I mentioned, weeds with mature seed heads. Charcoal, I did this talk one time when someone was adamant that charcoal could be composted. So I looked up some more information if the charcoal is additive free. So there aren't any extra things in your charcoal and you do this in small amounts. Some sources did say that you can add some charcoal. Overall though, charcoal is not typically recommended in your compost. If you have insect-ridden plants, disease plants, those could transfer the disease to your compost. So the main reason, and I'll ask you that as a question, why don't you wanna put meat, fish, bone, fat and all these sorts of things in your compost bin? Yes, Nina, you're exactly right. You could attract all kinds of critters.  You could also usually pest, but you might attract pets into the compost as well. So you don't want animals crawling around in your compost bin. And as Kyla says, it might not break down well either. So I believe we have linked this, but we do have an NDSU extension handout I worked on with one of my former students. And this lists these same steps. This is a graphic from that composting handout. So the first thing you wanna do is select a dry shady spot near a water source for your compost pile or bin, add your browns and greens, chop them up, shred larger pieces. When the material is a dark, rich color, that means it's ready to use. And after your compost pile is established, you can mix in your grass clippings that haven't been treated, fruits and vegetable waste and other green waste. And then keep it watered because those organisms need moisture to break things down. So when is this gonna be ready for you? Well, it's gonna take a little while. Compost can be ready in about three months. It kind of depends on the season, the temperature, the size of the materials, size of the pile, but it's a great way to use up food scraps. And you can also buy kitchen composters. I gave one to my young adult daughter and I went, visited her in her apartment and she told me not to look in her compost bin because it was a science experiment that might frighten me. So I didn't look in it, but you can buy those small compost bins, they're quite small. And then you could use that compost on your household plants or if you had a balcony, if you lived in an apartment, you could use it for that. So how much do you use? How do you use it? It's up to three inches on the top of the soil when you work it into the soil about eight to 12 inches. So, you know, that much and work it in about a foot. And it's best to apply some every year. So my next strategy, I wanted to visit with you quite briefly because you're gonna have a whole session all about food preservation and I'm excited to hear that. That will be from my colleague in Kansas. Again, time to interact. Raise your hand by clicking on the hand icon if you've ever preserved food. Okay, there are 128 people on this call and everybody should have their hand raised because if you have a refrigerator or freezer, you are preserving food. We all preserve food. I wanted to make some points here. Be sure to use tested resources. You can find a lot of things all over the web but not all of it would I consider safe. You wanna use research tested resources. And the research on food preservation began back during the World War II era and there's ongoing revisions. There was a major overhaul in 1994 and 2006. I noticed there's a 2015 date on the USDA resources. Be sure that you're using tested resources. You can find those from any extension organization across the country, USDA, it's all free and we don't want you to get sick because unless you can food properly, especially our low acid foods like vegetables, meats, you could put yourself at risk for botulism. So we want you to have safe, high quality food. We don't wanna have you waste what you are growing this summer in your garden but be sure that you're canning foods properly. So this is a slide I like to show people. I'm really not trying to scare you but I do see people doing similar things now with canning food. This happened a long time ago, 1931 and eventually this led to 13 people dying including five people in one family and the source was improperly home canned vegetables. Very sad situation. If we find old heritage recipes for canned goods, I always tell people to go ahead and frame it but don't use it. If it's written in someone's handwriting you wanna preserve that memory, do that but we wanna use updated canning and food preservation guidelines. They're readily available. We don't want anyone to get sick. So these are some of the research tested recipes. So freezing has been research tested to make the optimum quality foods. We have lots of dehydration or drying recipes, formulations, jams and jellies, pickling and canning in general. So again, you can find a lot of these resources through extension. You can check out NCFSON, I mentioned that acronym. That's our regional group. And if you're not from North Dakota or you're certainly always welcome to use any of our resources but you could visit your state and you will have resources in your states to help you if you have questions as well. So for example, when you're freezing vegetables you, for best quality in most cases you do want to heat treat or blanch those. If you don't want to blanch them you're not gonna get sick by just freezing it but you might have vegetables that aren't as great of quality. So blanching can help with quality. Freezer burn, you probably have seen this that sort of that grayish look. It's a quality issue, it's not a safety issue. So use the right containers when you're freezing because you don't want to waste food again due to dehydration. But again, it's not probably you won't like eating the food but it most likely won't hurt you. Some things to think about if you don't have a thermometer an appliance thermometer in your refrigerator or freezer some have built in thermometers, keep this in mind. So if you have your temperature of your freezer at zero degrees Fahrenheit typically the length of storage is a year at best quality. If that temperature pops up to five degrees Fahrenheit that decreases the length of storage for best quality. And if we get all the way up to 30 degrees just under freezing five days. So make sure your freezer is at the right temperature. This one you might have grown up in homes where you use paraffin wax on top. We don't recommend that because you could actually have some microorganisms getting into cracks around that wax. We do recommend the two-piece lids and I know they were difficult to get during the pandemic because a lot of people were canning and preserving food and there were supply chain issues. But the manufacturers have told us directly that they do have these supplies and they're working very hard to get them across the country. So we don't recommend reusing those the tops but you can use the screw bands. So you don't wanna use the lids but the screw bands can be used. Pickling, it's a great way to preserve food. One thing I wanna note and you can read this as I'm going through but be sure that your vinegar is 5% acetic acid. Last year when I was picking up vinegar to do some food preservation at home I noticed the one the type of vinegar that was with the food preservation supplies happened to be the store brand. I had to go and find the name brand that actually had 5% acetic acid. The store brand had 4% acetic acid. So 5% is what you're looking for, for best safety and also your best quality. Ah, and here's another one. I get this question or comment periodically or I hear it on Facebook that people are canning in their ovens. Don't do that, that's not a good thing to do. Not safe. We can't get the right heat penetration in an oven. Yes, you might turn the oven to 350 degrees but that doesn't mean that your jar, the interior of your jar is reaching the safe temperature that you want it to reach. Microwave ovens are not a safe way to actually can foods and neither is your dishwasher. So pressure canners, water bath canners, steam canners, we have information about how to safely can in any of those appliances. So again, just please use the research tested recipes. You want your products to be safe, high quality and so on. So I have in finishing up today, I have some resources that you might want to explore more to raise awareness of food waste. So this poster goes way back, I believe it goes back to World War II. So it's not only now that we're talking about food waste, back in the day, they certainly were very cautious about food and some of their thoughts. Buy it with thought, cook it with care, serve just enough, save what we'll keep, eat what would spoil, homegrown as best, don't waste it. So they were pretty smart. These are our predecessors in most cases, maybe your parents, maybe your grandparents depending on your age, but they were certainly very cautious about wasting food. We've talked about composting, that is a way to repurpose wasted food and certainly donating food is a way to reduce food waste.  You may see sometimes in some grocery stores they will have food that doesn't look as beautiful as the perfect food. One in five fruits and vegetables grown don't fit the strict cosmetic standards. They're not as beautiful as the rest. The carrots might be crooked. The cucumbers may not be straight. The apple is in the right size and that can cause them to go to waste. So if you have the opportunity to buy imperfect produce, it's totally fine. It will have the same nutritional value even if it isn't perfectly straight or perfectly colored. Maybe it looks kind of strange, like that strawberry, but that strawberry will have the same amount of vitamin C and fiber and other nutrients as a beautiful strawberry that looks like cosmetically better than that. There is a US food waste challenge. It started back in 2013 and it was called Let's Talk Trash. And in 2020, right during the pandemic, two years ago, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the FDA and the USDA renewed their commitment to food waste reduction. So there is a nationwide commitment that we all should try our best to reduce food waste. And the goal is to reduce wasted food, 50% by 2030. So that's a lot. But hopefully you have some strategies that you can use in your own household. And with that, it's now time for all of us to write down or text ourselves a goal for reducing food waste. You can do that a couple, you know, those two different ways or however works best for you, but come up with a goal for yourself. And don't tell me about it. I don't need to know, only you need to know, but put that note where you will see it and then try to take action toward reducing waste. And again, I thank you for participating in our webinars. We certainly hope these are helpful to you and I'm happy to take some questions. All right, well, we definitely have some questions. I will just go from the top in case we run out of time, but I don't think we should. There's only about five or six of them right now, but back to the near the beginning, Julie, somebody was wondering, are peelings from fruit and veggies and bones from bone and meat considered or counted as part of food waste? So the peelings- Yes, they- Way back when you had that chart with all the different food waste stuff. I believe they are. Okay. I think this one actually was one from, that's from our fairly more recent and this one might've been when you were talking about the vinegar type stuff. Somebody asked, what if 6% acetic acid? That certainly would be safe. It's a minimum of 5%. It might make your pickles taste a little bit more acidic, more sour. It certainly would be safe. But what I'm seeing more often is 4% and probably because it would be less expensive for the manufacturer to put less acid in compared to water. Okay. Along the same lines, somebody's wondering that, or yeah, they said they accidentally bought that last year back when you were talking about the vinegar, I believe, and it does higher acid alter the flavor or affect the canning process? I think it would alter the flavor, but I would still can it using the same recommendations for water bath canning, for example, for pickles or whatever it happens to be. I would just stick with that, that amount of time. Okay. Sticking with the canning. Next question was, are steam canners USDA approved? There's been a lot of research. In fact, one of your previous speakers from Wisconsin Madison has done a lot of research or self on steam canning. So I would encourage you to go to that NC Epson, that acronym I mentioned with our North Central Extension Network and go to the Wisconsin information. They do have their steam canning information online and it has been peer reviewed and tested and so on. So be sure anytime that you're following these different methods that you follow them exactly as they're stated. That means the proportions of ingredients, the amount of time and all that sort of thing. You can't get creative when you're doing home food preservation, especially canning. You want to be your scientist.  All right, so this is the last one of the ones I copied over, then I'll have to jump back to the chat because I see more have been coming in. But I have a couple about compost. So the first one was, do you cover your outdoor compost bin during the winter? I don't cover ours. I mean, you certainly could, but you're just getting that extra snow water in there and it's never caused us any issue. So I think it's fine. It would be either way. But if you have an indoor composter in your kitchen, you do want to keep that covered because you are growing lots of things. So I would do that. How often do you need to stir the compost piles? Stir regularly. Is there a definite time? Typically, every couple of weeks or so, just get in there with a pitchfork and start turning it around. And you're gonna find that the compost itself is going to start settling out at the bottom. So stir regularly. I don't, there's not a magic answer to that one, but a couple of times a month, I would say, not daily. Sure, yeah. What about chicken waste? Can you throw them in the pile or that in the pile? So I, like when we say chicken waste, I'm not sure what that means. If you're talking feathers or, no, I, okay. So I, we have specialists on campus that specialize in composting manure. So there is a resource on the NDSU Extension site about animal waste. And if you, Deb, if you want to follow up with me, I'd have to look up where that is kept and I'd be happy to send you the link to that. But I wouldn't put, you know, uncomposted chicken manure into your, your compost bin. I'd keep it, keep it separate. I'll stick with compost since we have a couple more here. Do you see bugs in the compost? There probably will be some bugs that are present. Is that gonna hurt it? You know, it gets pretty hot if your composting is going well. And it probably will kill the bugs that are there. We have not had issues with, with bugs and flies. I think it gets, it gets kind of hot for them. I would jump back up here a little bit to see that I'm on a couple I missed. What do you think about beeswax impregnated cotton wraps for storing foods? That is a question I have never been asked. I would have to look into that. I, it's not a typical recommendation. I will just say that. I, you know, the storage information we have is about, you know, using proper containers and so on. So you can certainly follow up with me more on that, but I, I haven't really looked into research on that. I would rather see you using airtight containers, you know, glass is an excellent container for storing food and probably better than, than anything. Does vinegar wane in acidity over time? It probably won't wane. It probably might even get more acidic over time. You might look at the, the storage date on even your vinegar bottle. So I would, I would try to use up the vinegar within the best buy date, because I believe many of the vinegar products do have a use buy date or best buy date. But, you know, if I were to guess and I haven't looked into the research on this, most likely it's, you know, acid will hang in there for a long time, but you might see some evaporation of the water. Cause it's just acetic acid and water that makes up the vinegar. For sanitizing with bleach, does bleach lose its potency in the bottle over time? Yes. Bleach will lose its, its potency. So if you ever have worked in a food service type situation, they do recommend that you, you know, remake those bleach solutions daily or, you know, whatever your policy says, it does lose its strength over time.  So don't make a ton of bleach at a time is what my, my message is. So if you want to use bleach as a sanitizer and put it in a spray bottle, I'd make a smaller amount, you know, maybe a quart, maybe a teaspoon per quart, something like that. Got a couple that came in in the Q and A, I'm going to jump over there and look at one of them. What if we don't have a refrigerator here in the house? How can we reduce food waste? If you don't have a refrigerator, well, drying is, you know, drying is always a possibility for foods. If you have electricity, an electric food dehydrator is a good option.  Cause it's colder, you know, and right now we still have a refrigerator outside. We don't recommend people storing food outside, but certainly that is another possibility. One about taking food out and then re-freezing it. Lila said, I took out ground turkey to thaw in the refrigerator. They went out to eat for two days and then now she wants to re-freeze it. Can you re-freeze it? Yes, you can re-freeze foods for best quality, though you, it's best to re-freeze the food when it still has ice crystals present, then you're going to get your very best quality, but you can re-freeze it as long as it has been in your refrigerator. And you do want to thaw foods in your, in your refrigerator, not in your counter or in your sink for, for safety and also quality. So you can re-freeze foods, but expect some quality loss. And while we're on that topic of frozen foods, as long as a food remains solidly frozen. So if you have a two-year-old turkey for Thanksgiving and it's been solidly frozen, it's certainly fine to use. A lot of questions still on composting. And Mary put a nice little whole thing in the chat there. If you guys can see that, I think it actually is to, it didn't go to everybody. So I'll copy and paste it. She's saying that Prairie Yard and Garden did a show on composting several weeks ago and it's on pioneer.org and also on YouTube. So I'm going to paste back in what Mary put in there to everybody. But some other stuff on composting, they were wondering eggshells. I think I've heard those are good, right? Somebody's asking eggshells, or if that's okay to throw in. That was on our list of, they called it, it was in the greens. So yes, you can compost those. Yeah. And then somewhere asked what items should not be. I don't know if there's lists out there in any of our PDFs about that stuff that shouldn't be. There should be on my one slide, I talked about not meat and dairy and those sorts of items that are higher in protein because they will attract pests. Yeah. That looks like we're just about it. I know one, I guess I wanted to ask about the temperature on when to know that the compost is ready to flip. But I think it depends on the size of the pile and stuff. It's kind of, yeah, you're right. It's when to flip, just maybe put a note on your calendar and set a time when you're going to flip it periodically. A lot of the sources I saw every couple of weeks or so. One last one I see here, asking if there's a certificate provided after. Yes, in fact, there is a certificate that is on the event page for this program and you can print it out and you can count this as continuing education. You've got my email, drop me an email if we somehow missed your question. Happy to follow up with more information.


Welcome to the backstory on justice in Longmont. My name is Tim Waters and as a volunteer for Longmont Public Media I enjoy the opportunity to interview leaders, policy makers, decision makers, activists in the community on topics of interest and relevance to the community. And this in this morning I have the good fortune of interviewing four of the principal leaders in Longmont Community Justice Partnership is focused on schools and what does restorative justice look like in our schools. So welcome to the panel this morning to Kathleen McGoy who is the director to officer Stacy Stallings who is our school resource officer and a champion of community justice or restorative justice in the partnership in our schools to Abby Winkler a graduate of Silver Creek High School in Shenandoah Wa who is a rising junior at Silver Creek High School. Now those are insufficient introductions but there's at least your names. Now I'm going to ask you to tell the viewers of this a little bit more about yourselves. Let's start. Kathy will start with you. Go to Stacy, Abby and Shenandoah. Tell us about who you are and how you got into this. Yeah thanks so much Tim and I appreciate your invitation to have us on the podcast. For me in in 2012 I moved to Boulder to finish writing my master's thesis and prior to that I'd been studying and working in international peace building for nine years. So in my writing I was really focused on this approach to peace work called conflict transformation which says that conflict is something natural that's always going to happen between humans but when we approach it a certain way it can be an opportunity for growth and new perspective and ultimately transformation of everyone involved instead of seeing conflict as an external problem that we can solve and it'll magically go away forever. So when I discovered restorative justice I thought oh this is it this is conflict transformation that has the power to both change individuals lives and change systems. Did you finish that master's degree? I did finish the master's degree and my thesis got published as a book so it's out there in the world and yeah then I started volunteering here at Longmont Community Justice Partnership and I after two months of volunteering I became a bilingual case coordinator and then eventually became the executive director. Yeah well I was in I was in education too long to not want to know the end of that story but about your your master's thesis. Stacey tell us about you or Officer Stallings tell us about you I should. That's okay Stacey is just fine. I have been with Longmont PD for I actually just on my 13 year anniversary so I've been here for 13 years as an officer started out on patrol and then in 2014 went into the school resource officer assignment at Silver Creek. Prior to being a police officer I I didn't have any experience in law enforcement other than my occasional personal contact with police officers you know like like normal but and and not always through great decisions to be honest so you know I kind of had a wide variety of experiences there you know before that I was kind of trying to find what what I still wanted to be and and and I had this idea that I needed to wait until I was a responsible adult to make those kind of decisions and that just came later in life for me so I didn't start this career until I was 32 so since being an SRO at Silver Creek well let me back up I got involved with restorative justice and introduced to restorative justice I'd never heard of it in my life before becoming an officer I don't remember hearing anything about it in academy in police academy and then when I got to Longmont and we had our orientation when we were brand new officers we have a month of orientation before we go into our field training program and that's when I learned about restorative justice and that was when LCJP would come and give us you know a little two hour training sessions in our orientation and and then I referred maybe a couple of cases when I was a new officer and the first time I sat in a community group conference I was hooked and I thought this is this that was amazing I have never walked out of a courtroom to be honest with you after testifying and thought that was amazing so to me that I I felt transformed as an officer and I could see that the transformative process that was happening between you know the the refer the responsible parties and the harmed parties that were involved and and I wanted to do more of that and so when the opportunity came up that I could be a liaison with LCJP that's a collateral duty that the police department offers on occasion when there's openings I I took that opportunity and have been involved ever since and you know just kind of been trying to push education out and refer you know cases when I can to restorative justice and learning more about it and now you know implementing it in a high school is you know I'm learning more about how how it integrates and how to um almost more of the business side of it you know instead of just being the referring officer who gets the to who gets to sit in the conference and enjoy the benefits um so I've got to learn more of like the front end work of restorative justice which has been eye-opening and and you know I've grown a lot I think learned a lot and I'm hoping we get to continue or we're going to drill down you made reference to some of the activities we're going to drill down on those in just a minute because I think that's an important part of the story what the you know how does it unfold but Abby tell us about you I was actually like reconnected with her so through safety I found out that she had started the restorative justice program um in the school I'm going to tell I started graduating with LCGP and um got going with that and I had previously experienced in the criminal justice system I was a um I testified as a witness for a criminal case and really just kind of saw the negative sides of our criminal justice system um and how uh unsatisfactory the process was for um both parties of the case and once I was introduced to restorative justice it really opened my eyes that there were other opportunities out there and that there was a much healthier way of approaching approaching that systems of conflict so um that was kind of my whole beginning to it and um I never sat on a case specifically at the school but I was still involved in volunteering and providing resources and stuff like that um and have been continuously involved in as a community member through LCGP and now I'm actually on um the National Youth Committee for um the National Restorative Justice Conference so and Abby you're a Silver Creek High School graduate where are you going to school now I know I'm card amazing university study chemistry I wanted to be at you here this year all right Shannon Doa tell us about you um so I was first introduced to restorative justice in my freshman year at Silver Creek um and we learned about it in just our basic health class and it sounded pretty interesting to me but I hadn't had any interaction with it with any of the harmed parties or the referred parties or anything like that um until my sophomore year where um I ended up being in this conflict with one of my friends where I was the responsible party and she was the harmed party and going through the process of restorative justice was just so much more satisfying and more just involved for both parties and I really felt like my side of the story was understood by the harmed party and I really feel like I understood where the harmed party was coming from in that meeting and I feel like I learned a lot more from the process than I would have if it was just a regular write-up and went on and so I continued that involvement in restorative justice by training to be a community member and um I have not participated as a community member at the meeting but I am listed I'm ready to participate whenever a meeting comes up so uh just to put a contemporary frame around the frame right we're talking about restorative justice in schools in the larger context of our not just the American society but globally they're in the context of this we're in the moment of this interview for this podcast uh questions about justice what it is and what it isn't and how we achieve it is uh in my lifetime I'm an old man I don't think I've ever experienced the cut of intensity and attention that questions of justice and balance the fairness and equity uh have have ever been as as intense or as relevant or as important as they are right now so when you hear a police officer talk about that was amazing or that was transformative and you talk and you hear from Stacy and Abby talking or from Shenandoah and Abby talking about uh what there was to learn and what was satisfying in the pursuit of justice those don't that language isn't used very often today at least in the contemporary rhetoric about policing enforcement the pursuit of justice so now we need to drill down on how do we get to the place where people have those experiences characterized by that kind of language Kathleen tell us about how what is restorative justice how does it play out in schools and we'll talk in another podcast about how it plays out in the community and why should good why should the community of Longmont care about this yeah thanks thanks for that great question so at its core um what you've already heard referenced by by Shenandoah Abby and Stacy is that restorative justice in its essence is a framework to bring together those who are responsible for crime who have caused harm with those who have been impacted or harmed so in the criminal justice system we use the terms offenders and victims and in the restorative framework we use referred a responsible person and then harmed person and the unique angle of restorative justice is that we not only introduce the directly harmed individual but also members of the community that have also been impacted by an incident and we give those people the directly and indirectly harmed individuals a central role in what needs to be what needs to happen to create justice and the responsible person is expected to take responsibility to be held accountable for the harms that they have caused so in Longmont what that looks like is our law enforcement officials police officers working in any department so school resource officers patrol officers detectives are all able to make direct referrals to restorative justice upon learning more from the involved individuals the harmed and responsible parties and they can make that direct referral instead of writing a ticket or making an arrest so it's a complete diversion around the criminal justice system they are looking for those those primary criteria is the person who caused the harm or the offender taking responsibility for their actions and is the harmed person okay with the case not going to court if those two criteria are met then the officer can make a referral to lcjpe or the school's version can look slightly different than this but lcjpe can play a supporting role and then the case gets matched with two trained facilitators those facilitators will meet with each harmed and responsible person separately before bringing them together with trained volunteer community members that was the role that Shenandoah referenced and what we call a community group conference and in that community group conference along with the officer and the involved parties the facilitators and the community members those are all the the folks present we talk about what happens who is affected and how and what can be done to repair the harmed relationships so following that group meeting the responsible person will have a contract usually with three to five specific actions that they can take to both repair the harmed relationships give back to the community and also demonstrate learning that they've learned something that will influence their decisions moving forward and if they complete their contract then they won't have any criminal record from that incident if they don't complete the contract or they reoffend while under contract then the case goes back to the referring officer so in in long when I would say if you if you care about giving victims and community members a voice in justice then then you care about this program and if you care about keeping offenders out of the system by holding them accountable and offering them a way to learn from their choices then you care about this program and finally in the context that we're in right now if you care about giving police more tools to do their job and bringing them together with community to create a sense of respect and accountability then you care about restorative justice we're going to I'm going to I'm going to follow up on this with both you and officer spellings in terms of cost and benefits because I because there's an economic side to this as well as a human and social side and I think it's important you know and I to the degree that you can talk about that in just a minute but I do want to shift this conversation to to officer spellings because what you just did was give us a new way to think about justice not as vengeance not as retribution not as not as enforcement for the purpose of being punitive not incarceration justice defined very differently and I'm guessing that might have something to do why an officer would would go into this experience and use words like amazing and transform and if there was ever a time when we'd like to hear our law enforcement our front line police officers have more amazing transformative experiences it's right now as the as the father of a son who is on the job for eight years I have some idea of how tough as a family member how tough it must be today for for our police officers so officer spellings talk about what does this mean as an alternative as options as tools for policing in ways that pursue justice in ways that Kathleen has presented well I would say that it's I mean you know just like all of our other tools it has to be the appropriate tool for the situation of course and and and I think everyone wherever you stand on these issues can agree that it it's it probably doesn't work for everything and there are the key criteria I kind of think that one one roadblock that we consistently run into when we're when I am wanting to make a referral to restorative justice or I'm wondering why we aren't using it more why we can't use it more and I think something that comes up fairly regularly that I run into is that so many people don't take accountability and that's a key piece to you know being able to have the restorative justice use the restorative justice practices instead of the traditional criminal justice system and and I think that that's kind of something that has happened over many years and and you know that's one of your constitutional rights to remain silent and we're kind of taught you know and especially now that's even coming out more don't talk to the police don't don't admit things you know it kind of depends on what how you were brought up but so many times I mean I've even heard parents at at the school say don't talk to them not just me as at SRO but you know administrators the principal or system principal don't talk to them don't write anything down don't and so unfortunately I think that's something that that we have to work on as a society is is it being the the okay thing to do to accept to take responsibility for our actions and yes there may be consequences and you know being willing to handle or deal with those consequences and and make things right so that's I think one of the biggest problems that we run into as police officers is that being just such a it's a it doesn't it doesn't work without that piece and so we can't use restorative justice more often if if people don't do that but you know as in terms of the positive things about restorative justice that we could truly change our relationship with our communities nationwide is this is very unique I don't I don't know if you know that Tim I mean they're in very very few places in the country our police officers allowed to make a direct referral to restorative justice and have this tool in their tool belt so we're we're very fortunate here and that we're able to use that but and and it just gives us more options because sometimes it's not you know you've got some some someone you're dealing with who is is showing remorse and they're you know upset about what they did and they're taking responsibility for it they're wanting to make it right right then but maybe the victim in the situation is like no I'm not just going to accept an apology and call it a day like you know I'm upset whatever the crime may be so you know we have to take some action but is that someone that now I'm gonna have to you know charge with a felony because this victim does want to see some kind of justice and you know I always have discretion as an officer but the victim has one of the loudest voices that we should be listening to and so oftentimes we do follow that their lead on what they wish to happen and that's kind of one of the other components that we we see as a roadblock sometimes sometimes as officers we want to make a referral to restorative justice and we think it's perfect perfectly appropriate it would be very successful but sometimes we can't get the victims to agree to that so there's ways around that too but I have now gone off on a whole different side no there so if you want to redirect me or if I didn't quite answer that let me know actually most people who spend a time around me know that's where that's I spend most of my life going off on tangents so you got you got lots of degrees of freedom in these in this conversation Abby and Shenandoah it's one thing to talk about this there's something else to it assign meaning and value to it in schools why do you think this is important for your contemporaries and your in the institution your schools as we heard officers talk about this this concern about you know don't speak to any adults right or don't speak to the administrators having been a high school principal and a discipline officer myself that'd be too tough to do your job if your students won't talk to you or talk to uniform police officers or anybody who's in authority talk about how this plays out or why it plays out and it's so important in your schools and to your contemporaries I really think that we're looking at schools uh that states is right like there's a level of education a lot you know high schoolers are young and likely haven't had a lot of experience with a sort of a justice system and when you're especially looking at a high school level age age group you're looking at a lot of kids who in our society general we have a very individualistic approach to what how we view the world I feel like we're all kind of raised to be like every man we think for himself I feel and so in high schools when you're looking when you're lacking that sort of educational component how do you bring that in how do you realize that you have what your actions do affect other people but sure maybe if you get into a disagreement with somebody or you know are causing some sort of alternative horror you know that you're harming somebody directly but you don't realize that that has ripple effects and especially when we're looking at bringing up our youth it's important to be able to identify that and to be able to educate on those purposes and when we're looking at restorative justice and these agents it's so preventative almost you know if we can get to the source of the problem now we can stop future problems and I feel like restorative justice is such a good way to tackle those sorts of problems um and to help provide a real resolution when it comes to um these development in in our schools Jen and Joey would would you like to add to that I'm sure yeah yeah um I definitely agree with Abby that it does help you see the ripple effects it's not just you against one person or one person against you it affects everybody in the community and in the school in small ways that you might not even think about um and I also think it's a really important way to kind of educate the rest of the community on like how these issues actually affect students for example in my freshman year in my health class we had somebody who was under a restorative justice contract who had to talk about what happened in their incident and then talk about how they kind of fixed that and how restorative justice helped them kind of right the wrongs that they had committed and then when I was the referred party one of my contract items was also to present to a few classes and kind of talk about the issue and students not only at Silver Creek but in the wider community so I think it's a really great way to kind of educate everybody involved and kind of like Abby said stop the incidents in the high school formative years where it's not as serious from going out into the wider community and becoming more serious issues uh one of the one of the I guess values we promoted in schools for a long long time is individualism right you do it on your own and you're going to compete and and it's less about the community and it's more about your achievements as an individual it will be interesting in the post pandemic world given what we have learned about how how critical our behaviors are in relationship to others right as simple as wearing a mask or not right that's why we're in virtual interview today is because of the pandemic so this whole concept of my obligation and my accountability to others in some ways in the post pandemic world maybe that's defined a little differently than was pre-pandemic uh when it was I'll get mine and you know and to heck with anybody else uh as a as a value we seem to have promoted in many places in many occasions through our school system and I was in it for a decade so so I can say that firsthand I'm not just a critic from standing outside the system uh both Kathleen and Officer Stallings there's a there's a cost to this and a benefit to this creating the Longmont Community Justice Partnership there's costs associated with this there there are costs associated I would assume for the police department to have officers in these roles in the time it takes but there are also benefits and I don't know if you can reduce those benefits to a dollar figure but but it would be helpful for you to hear from you too on what you see as costs and benefits not just in schools but in you know in the context of law enforcement generally Kathleen you want to begin sure sure I'll start that one out and I'll I just want to tag on briefly to the the last question that the the opportunity that we have in schools that I think all three of you refer to is to create a restorative culture so when the culture changes you know away from this individualistic every person for themselves towards we can all do better together that also supports taking responsibility right like if it's safe if I know what's going to happen when I take responsibility for making a mistake or making a choice that hurt others and I know that there I'm going to enter into this process that sees me as a human connected to a community and then I'm going to be given an opportunity to use my strengths to repair relationships with those that I've hurt well that starts encouraging a different level of responsibility to take place which then enhances respect in the building and especially when we're concerned right now with violence in schools it's more important than ever for students to feel a sense of belonging to that community oh I'm wanted here I have a chance to use my voice to talk about my experience and to be reintegrated into the school community even by the law enforcement officer you know the law enforcement officer is giving me this chance to say who I am and not be defined by this one act that could potentially send me to court eventually to incarceration or suspension expulsion one of these other options so I just wanted to make a note about the the potential of changing culture for the costs and benefits question so the primary benefit of restorative justice is that it is a public safety solution so lcjp with a budget right now we have a budget of around five hundred thousand dollars a year and two hundred thousand of that does come from a contract with the city of Longmont so with that budget we serve hundreds of community members every year we we usually work on approximately 100 to 120 cases that involve somewhere around 200 responsible parties and anywhere between 60 to 100 harmed parties um just to give you a comparison in Colorado it costs around a hundred thousand dollars to incarcerate one youth for one year so of course not all of the individuals coming through restorative justice would end up in incarceration it's not an apples to apples comparison but what we see is that if we invest in our youth and adults on the front end to keep them out of the system we're ultimately saving a lot of money and a lot of taxpayer dollars on the other side of things because investing a hundred thousand dollars to lock somebody up we know is not going to really lead to the safety outcomes that we're hoping for we also know that we have failed rates of recidivism once somebody is incarcerated for adults in Colorado we have an almost 50 percent recidivism rate that adults leaving incarceration will reoffend and be reincarcerated within three years so instead of doing this revolving door approach where we know people are going to come in and out draining community resources why not invest on the front end um and what we see just to give you some stats is a hundred percent satisfaction from victims and harm parties suggesting that are they report specifically to us that the responsible parties who go through restorative justice were held accountable for their actions and in the we recently completed a recidivism study that looked at 2,200 offenders who were referred to LCJP between 2006 and 2017 we saw a 3.5 percent recidivism rate so when we look at other recidivism rates that we hear about throughout this this community in the country that's a really low number so we know that this works there's a huge benefit to operating as a non-profit outside of the government outside of an institution being a a non-profit allows allows us to work alongside directly with the police so that they can make these what we call pre-file referrals meaning no charges are ever filed against somebody taking responsibility it also also add one more benefit which is that it really allows this to be a volunteer-driven approach so we incorporate students like Abby and Shenandoah and then we have at our broader work at the non-profit around a hundred active volunteers at any time making this making this intervention possible Stacy you want to add to this in terms of the both cost and benefits from the law enforcement perspective it sounds like Kathleen wrapped it up pretty well I think as far as the benefits from the from the police perspective is um we don't get I don't I don't think it's a secret that we don't get a lot of positive interaction with our community unless we are getting to do like a cops night out you know neighborhood barbecue things like that or we really try to get involved in these community events but but when we are called on a call because someone has called the police that is not always a negative or right positive interaction and and and even as as kind as some I believe many bomb-up police officers are and myself and as respectful as we try to be it doesn't always end up being just like you know it's not your best day and especially as the responsible party or the offender in that moment regardless of which direction they're taking so I think a huge benefit that I have noticed and sometimes I have even told Kathleen this before I'm like sometimes I think restorative justice is the only thing that keeps me in this job because it gives me the opportunity to see beyond that person's actions because in my job all I see is people's actions and people doing victimizing one another and it's it gets real hard you know to what is the saying to see the forest for the trees kind of thing because it gets it gets challenging to see people as people instead of their actions everywhere and when I get to sit in as an officer in a community group group conference model I get to see there's more to that person than what they did and I get to see them not just taking responsibility for it but wanting to repair the harm and fix it and you know many times I I ask that the case coordinators communicate you know occasionally with me on the contract items and they usually let us know when an offender has completed their contract successfully and and sometimes that includes some kind of letter to to us or something if they come up with that for their contract item which we will end up seeing that and reading that too and it it kind of repairs the damage to us as police officers that happens in this job that's how I feel and so I think that that's a huge benefit that so many law enforcement agencies are missing out on by not being not either having restorative justice in their communities at all and or not being involved in the restorative justice that's happening in their communities so I think that we missed for anybody at a job where you for the overwhelming majority of the time when you're interacting with somebody you're called to interact with you're interacting with them on their worst day that's going to have a that is going to have a serious impact over an extended period of time so having other opportunities obviously is some of the balance that you'd like to achieve in your professional life I'll just add one more kind of editorial comment for when I was in the field of education the kind of the cliche was we ought to put more money into education because it costs way more to send kids to the state pen and it does depend state right and and you just reinforce that Kathleen that that this is we by supporting whatever takes financially for this kind of an approach we end up saving we're able to redirect funds right to to other kinds of initiatives and just with with that on that theme and I don't maybe you want to comment maybe not either Kathleen or Stacy on this we're hearing a lot when I when I leave my home today and drive down the street I'll see signs about defunding the police department I'll see it in the 24-hour news circle and and I in my interview with Mike Butler and it's in a backstory with Mike we talked a little bit about be be clear what you're asking for in the defunding of police departments because if you defund police departments you'd be defunding this initiative potentially and the support that police officers need to be able to spend the time and engage in ways that officer selling is describing is that fair absolutely I think that Kathleen that's probably a better question for you since you're the you deal with that kind of department sure yeah I I would be very concerned if the Longmont police department were to be defunded and I think what the community the Longmont community specifically needs to know is the number of community-based initiatives that Longmont police officers are already committed to and have been developing we've been doing restorative justice with police for 25 years we've been doing the core program the crisis and outreach oh gosh I'm going to get it wrong crisis and outreach response and engagement there you go and lead the law enforcement assisted diversion program I think those some iteration of those have been in place for six years so when we hear about other communities demanding more types of intervention hey let's not ask police officers to be the experts in mental health crises in de-escalating incidents on the street in intervening when addiction and substance abuse is a problem which is I think those issues contribute to the majority of police calls and other communities around this country are saying let's get more professionals with expertise in those areas involved in responding to those community needs Longmont's already doing that we already have those programs in place in partnership with law enforcement which I'll say from my perspective has changed the culture of police in Longmont they have these tools the tools reinforce a different way of engaging with the community you can't engage with the community if you don't have those tools so I would be concerned very very concerned that we would be taking away options and tools from our officers we would be placing more stress and more burden on them if we were to defund police I do agree with what you said at the beginning about the comments from Chief Butler that this is a nuanced conversation it's very problematic to me when it's framed as this one or the other it's us versus them we need to have community members with diverse perspectives and voices along with officers sitting at the table when we talk about what we want to see in terms of public safety thanks Abby and Shenandoah as we as we draw down on the last few questions in in the this podcast what are the messages you'd like to send to your contemporaries to school administrators to city council members to city staff decision makers or budget you know folks who prepare budgets whatever that whatever the messages are what would you like people to hear from you two who have practical experience on on in all aspects of restorative justice in our schools no I really think that when we're looking at a long term future and long term the health of our society it would be great to just recognize that this creates empathy in our communities you're looking at creating a more empathetic future and culture if you introduce these sorts of procedures into your school systems and into your education systems what I mean wouldn't it be great if you could actually include students maybe in like circles with this administration let's get those voices the people that you're actually teaching in in contact with administrators and in contact with leaders and authority members like when we were talking about reaching the educational populace like you're not able to reach these people if you are stand behind that curtain and restorative justice really helps break these boundaries down and you're along with your peers you can also really show that students have power and students have a voice but in it's a learning opportunity it doesn't come off as punitive and I think that's really important for both sides instead of separating and rehab adults versus kids kind of is able to incorporate all aspects of the school and resources together and I think that that would be something that should be incorporated especially move forward moving forward if we're talking about reform this would be a great thing to include you know let's let's get more programs like this started let's like Kathleen saying it in general you know maybe not for every case but in general it costs less if we are reallocating the funds and looking at how we're actually repairing the community I think it could be really insightful a very insightful for our future going forward as for our future as a nation so yeah I definitely agree with Abby that it does create empathy in our society and I think that restorative justice is really helpful like officer selling said in getting past the actions of certain individual individuals so you often hear that you don't have all sides of the story well restorative justice allows you to get all sides of the story and it allows everybody there to kind of understand everybody's perspective and create ways to create justice that is satisfactory and amazing to everybody instead of just the regular justice system where justice is served in the form of the law but it's not necessarily served and it's not necessarily satisfying for all the parties involved so I think the main part of restorative justice that's important is that everybody's voice is heard and everybody gets a chance to kind of repair the harms that have been done and to repair the relationships in my own experience I got into a disagreement with a friend and before our restorative justice meeting we were not talking and the relationship between us was really rocky but now we've been able to repair that relationship and become friends again so I think that's a really important part of restorative justice as well well I know I made reference to messaging to administrators I know the administrators at your high school heard the message and they've been involved in this hopefully administrators across the country will have a chance to hear that message and if there's one word that jumps out over and over again what you just said that we've heard so much about recently it's empathy and the need for more coast to coast top to bottom in every sector of this country so I would invite Kathleen and Stacey if there's any messaging that you want to do as well in addition to what we've already heard any messages you'd like for decision makers policy makers people building budgets to hear yes sure I'll go first I'm chomping a little bit at this one you know that I think the loudest message that that is sitting heavy with me at in this time this climate and the you know discussion about the defunding and then removing SROs and things like that from school is you know every I think every organization every city every school district it's not all the same everywhere and you know at at my school and in same frame and working with LCJP and at the law mop police department you know restorative justice at Silver Creek would not exist without the SRO and it and not saying that at some point maybe someone some staff member or administrator might get some training or a counselor or something like that say hey we should try this and try building this but you know I think that there's a huge opportunity being being missed in in our country of utilizing resources as in terms of lot SROs specifically using restorative justice in schools so they can we can be there for safety we can be there for the bigger more more serious crimes where people are at risk their safety is at risk and and it could be imminent at times so we are there and we are present but we are constantly using this model of restorative justice in the school to deal with discipline issues or crimes that I mean they are you know by letter of the law their crimes and dealing with those so so that we can be present to build these relationships with our with our kids and teach them life skills that they get to carry with them forever and not contribute to the school of the prison pipeline and you know teach them how to have this this culture this this culture of ownership and inclusion with with their with all of their peers there you know so I get pretty passionate about that and I think that my message would be more for that you know here we are in this time where we're talking about defunding the police and so that the police have to set aside this this money to contribute to the community program so the police can't necessarily or the cities can't necessarily pay for restorative justice within every school district in their city or across the state and so I think school districts um could really benefit from uh helping to fund those those programs within their schools and I think that they would see a huge improve I think it would improve on attendance and behavior issues you know if we're not suspending kids then the attendance goes up which means they are having they are sitting in classrooms and you know potentially learning more and being more successful in school if they're actually present so there's just so many ways again that it would benefit if we could invest some in these types of practices in our schools and then just have better more positive relationships with staff and all the students of all of these different walks of life that are in the hallways that's one thing I always explain to to the kids is you know where they ask why they have so many roles in school why are there so many roles and I always ask them where where in your life are you going to be trapped in the same building that you're required to be in by law for seven hours a day with 1400 other people who could be completely and separate from you and your and your views and values and everything different religions different races different ages interests political views everything I mean complete all ends of the spectrum and then we you guys have to get along I have to make sure you get along all day or we all have to make sure you get along all day and every now and then a student will say um jail and I'm like yeah exactly you know I mean even your employers you tend to kind of gravitate towards you know certain fields because you have common interests and values and things like that so it's just a very unique place and I think that it's such a a great fit for restorative justice to be integrated into that system early on Kathleen yeah in terms of messaging well Stacy covered a lot of ground there which I really really appreciate and I would say you know we one of the reasons that restorative justice has been able to serve thousands and thousands of community members in Longmont is thanks to the investment of not only Longmont Public Safety but also the St. Brain Valley School District which has prioritized training for educators and administrators in restorative approaches and what that's allowed LCJP to do is grow to this point where right now we are really ready to provide even more services and focus on our relationships with school resource officers um we right now could could do more and we have secured funding from foundations and donors to support the expansion of our programming but we will be limited in that expansion if we lose funding from the city so I would say if if policymakers and decision makers are interested in seeing more restorative justice that has been described in this interview I would ask them to please find ways to prioritize funding of this community-based initiative Kathleen just build on that part of this as we wrap up with if if anybody who listens to this would like to learn more about how to get involved or is motivated to get involved how do they get involved yeah thanks so much for asking that Tim so the best way to get involved is of course to visit our website which is lcjp.org and we have a monthly orientation which we're currently hosting over zoom the next one is july 13th from six to eight we do have one in we have one this month in june but it's already full to capacity so you're welcome to go to our website to look at trainings and events and you can sign up directly for our orientation there and that's the first step towards learning more about everything that we do and how to get involved we also have a documentary that was made in just 2019 about our restorative justice police partnership you will see all three of these individuals on the screen with me featured in the documentary and the filmmakers in light of what's been going on throughout the country recently with violence the filmmakers have just released the documentary publicly so we'll be linking that on our website this week to make it more broadly available outstanding I want to say thanks to all four of you Shenandoah Abbey, Officer Stallings, Kathleen thank you so much for giving us this time and for telling sharing the backstory on restorative justice in schools with Longmonters we will we're going to continue this conversation there'll be another backstory talk about how the supplies and what the implications are for the community but I want to thank all four of you this morning you could have done a lot of different things with your time the fact that you chose to spend it with me in this podcast is a service in and contribution to the community thanks and be safe take care of yourselves thanks Tim thank you thanks for having us thank you