Composting for Love!

Posted by Robert Dailey Aug 8, 2007

How I was roped into this one? I thought. I am now on the verge of joining a 12-step program to learn how to say “no!” because I obviously cannot.

Here I was, hauling cut grass, shredded paper, and other compostable materials across a meadow. The destination was the two large compost bins I had built a good piece (at least the length of a football field) behind the main building, That building served as activity rooms and classrooms to the 50 or so mentally-challenged adults who were either in residence or were bused there on a daily basis.

The place is non-profit, and the one handyman (all they could afford) was hard put to do anything but the most needed chores around the large facility. I guess that’s why I volunteered when one of the board members asked me if I knew how to make compost? It seemed to be an odd question, but I replied that I did. Then, she asked if I would.

“Would what?” I asked.

“Teach us how to make compost,” she replied, explaining that they had a rather large vegetable garden, had a great deal of grass clippings, leaves and other materials, and it would save them money if, instead of buying compost, they could make their own. It would also be a learning experience for the clients at the facility. So before I could even think about it, I had said “yes.”

I met many of the clients a week later, and each of them had to shake my hand when I explained I was going to help them make “dirt lasagna,” and that we were going to use it in their vegetable garden.

The next week, some good Samaritans had taken the clients bowling by the time I arrived and the grounds were quiet.

It was noon, and extraordinarily hot. The weatherman had predicted a chance (small) of rain, but so far, all I could see in the sky was washed-out-blue and an occasional cloud puffing by.

I picked up a garden fork in the greenhouse, tossed it into a wheelbarrow and began to trudge back toward the bins I had made the week before, when I saw the pile of paper, placed inside one of the bins.

The clients had spent a good deal of time hand-shredding newspapersand placing the stuff into one of the compost bins for the “dirt lasagna man” I got a little lump in my throat but immediately chastised myself. Imagine! A grown man getting teary-eyed over some shredded newspapers in a compost bin.

However, it was not that. It was that this tiny deed could make a difference in the lives of these beautiful people.

It was then that the words of a close friend of mine whispered through my mind. “You know,” he surmised one day unexpectedly, “mentally-challenged people are really incapable of doing some things.”

I had bristled at this seemingly insensitive yet obvious statement, and coldly asked him what he meant.

"Yeah, they’re incapable of hate,” he said. “They only know how to love.”