Folks, today we have Brooke Salvaggio, Owner of Urbavore Farm & Compost Collective KC as our 35th out of 100 business leaders making a positive impact on their community.
In this episode we talk about what it’s really like to own a purpose-driven business fuelled by intentionality down to every last detail. She tells a story full of big dreams and the big challenges that come alongside it. She’s an example of a radical leader who’s evolved over her time stating, “the 44 year old Brooke probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to do what 24 year old Brooke did.” But we’re grateful that 24 year old Brooke did channel the naivete of youth to create some really cool things that have the ability to feed an entire community, power a neighborhood with clean energy, provide a space for green education, and pull together a really cool ecosystem of a community.
It hasn’t all been easy. We talk about the bureaucratic systems and people in powerful positions that hinder efforts to provide local food to neighbors, responsibly power neighborhoods, and education & support the community. It’s a set of frustrations that seem evident in the worlds of so many in the sustainable-business field. We talk about what happens when the framework of a world that currently exists isn’t good enough and what it means when you desperately want to function outside of that framework because you truly believe that it’s worthwhile in the long run to do so. Even more importantly, we talk about the impact of those decisions on the humans behind them threatening to take their optimism. Luckily for us though, she tells us that she’s not getting off this ride. She’ll continue to rise, create, grow, and inspire and we can’t wait to support & watch it all.
Compost Collective KC: When you compost with us, your food waste becomes a part of this natural process by going back into the soil. What’s more, this food waste isn’t being cycled into just any soil. It is being cycled into the soil at a local farm, Urbavore, where it provides vital nutrients for an abundant selection of healthy, organic foods for the community. This very special farm serves as the “mothership” and the pilot site for a much greater vision of urban sustainability.
This vision includes holistic compost hubs tied to farms and community gardens scattered throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area. Like the hub we’ve created at Urbavore Farm, these compost hubs would not only handle and process the waste in a environmentally-friendly manner, but they would apply the finished compost to their fields to build soil, conserve water, and increase crop yields, thus strengthening our local food system and making organic produce more readily available.
Urbavore Farm: Urbavore is a biologically diverse farmstead set on 13.5 acres in Kansas City's urban core. Our energy-independent systems for food production, waste, water and shelter redefine sustainability to build community and ecology. Urbavore includes fresh food & flowers grown locally on the farm, an farmstead dedicated to earth contact, solar power, & water recycling, composting services (see Compost Collective KC), and a whole lot of dreams & plans for the future.
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