Holmes Junior High School was recognized for their composting and recycling efforts. The school was awarded the Sylvan Runkel Award for outstanding whole-school environmental education program in 2020

Holmes Helps is a collaboration between Holmes Junior High in the Cedar Falls School District and Green Iowa AmeriCorps. The project started with Maya Mallavarapu, a former student, that did a service project for the school after noticing the waste left from school lunches. Maya’s father, Dr. Ravi Mallavarapu, donated money to help implement a program to curb the waste for the future. Homes Helps was born. There were some learning curves and bumps, but the program persevered. The school now has bins for composting, plastic recycling, and landfill. In just 14 weeks they diverted over 3,000 pounds of food waste from the landfill. Jennifer Trent from the Iowa Waste Reduction Center said Holmes Junior High was the second school in Iowa that was composting and recycling school lunches.

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