Community Partner: Baltimore Office of Sustainability
Intern: Alyssa Wooden
Site Supervisor: Ava Richardson
What is the Baltimore Office of Sustainability?
The Office of Sustainability is a resource, catalyst, and advocate for a sustainable
and resilient Baltimore. The Office integrates the principles of environmental in-
tegrity, social equity, and economic prosperity into plans, practices, policies, and
partnerships. Our goal is to provide innovative solutions to our City’s challenges
while engaging, educating, and motivating all sectors of Baltimore.
Looking back through my emails, documents, notes and photos, I can certainly come up with a
comprehensive list of things I accomplished at the Office of Sustainability. I created a community
presentation on food waste in Baltimore, wrote a literature review of best practices for food waste
reduction in schools, designed graphics and wrote captions for social media, made a spreadsheet
of food waste apps serving the Baltimore area, and documented over 4500 pounds of compost
collected from City residents. But the impact this internship has left on me is a lot more profound
than the contents of any email or Google doc.
• Oversaw the Office’s Farmers’
Market Food Scrap Drop-off,
collecting and weighing over
4500 lbs of compost
• Led the Baltimore Food
Matters social media
campaign, including designing
graphics, writing captions and
posting content
• Created a Food Matters
presentation to be dissem-
inated to the Baltimore
community
• Wrote a literature review on
best practices for reducing
food waste in schools
6
I learned what makes people want to work in city government, and why they stay there. It takes
a strong, dedicated work ethic and a willingness to advocate for one’s own ideas. Baltimore can
be a difficult city to work in, especially from a government perspective – City employees have to
grapple with a long history of segregation, urban decay and political corruption. Trying to effect
change at the policy level can be slow, tedious, and sometimes fruitless. Funding is limited, so
even if a proposed project has community support and the potential to make the City a better
place, it might never get the chance to become a reality.
But despite these setbacks, I feel like I got to see Baltimore truly flourish this summer. In addition
to all the work that takes place behind the scenes, I watched the bustling crowds pass through the
farmers’ market and saw people get genuinely excited when they learned that they could drop off
compost at our stand for free. I witnessed the Office convene organizations of all stripes around a
common goal, and I saw my coworkers help community members push past obstacles to achieve
tangible progress.
I learned a lot about compost and food waste this summer – enough to make me think differently
about Baltimore and consider how my own actions contribute to the problem. But when I look
back on this internship, what I’ll remember most is the drive, the determination, and the people
with whom I was fortunate enough to work.