Scholarship Given to North Carolina Student Thanks to a Donation from the NCCC
09/26/2017 3:22 PM
Meet the winner of the North Carolina Composting Council/CCREF Young Investigator scholarship, Seth Heffern. Seth, an Army veteran, is now pursuing his undergraduate degree at St. Andrews University in Laurinburg, NC. His project is based on introducing commercial composting to this region of NC in a unique manner. Seth works with GrowingChange, a non-profit start-up. With this group, he will begin diverting pre-consumer food waste from both local universities to a composting site in Wagram, NC. He will be working to transform a closed prison into a sustainable farm and educational center. At the core of the farming operation on the 67-acre site will be the composting unit. This research proposal will demonstrate the importance of compost inclusion in this vital agricultural region of NC (nearly one fourth of NC) while informing a replicable model that ultimately could expand composting production on 24 other closed prisons in NC alone, estimated to be around 2000 acres positioned around rural NC. With this project, Seth is also working to help generate jobs for returning veterans in this NC county which has the state’s highest unemployment.