Today we’d like to introduce you to Tina Matthias.
Hi Tina, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
A Sustainable Journey My story begins in 1986 when I took a trip to visit family in Taiwan. I was warned by my family that it was a very dirty/trashy island; to be exact, worse than Tijuana, MX in the ’80s. They weren’t wrong. We wore masks for the smog, and we saw that trash was everywhere. I stopped a family from leaving all their trash behind after picnicking because I was so upset by their litter they left behind. Fast forward 20 years. I revisited the island as a middle-aged adult. To my amazement, the cities and mountainsides were clean! I was reprimanded by my Auntie for throwing away a stinky fruit seed in the wrong bin because the residents were required to sort their food waste properly or they would be fined. Taiwan had changed from a litter-strewn ugly place into a clean, beautiful island in those years between my visits.
Shortly after that last trip to Taiwan, I began a 32.5-year career at the Living Coast Discovery Center (LCDC), a Zoo/Aquarium here on San Diego Bay educating about the value of our local wildlife and ecosystems. I initiated monthly community clean-ups and restoration programs, managed thousands of volunteers, trained docents who gave tours to countless students, and created the zero-waste education program for event rentals on and offsite. I also chaired the Sustainability Commission for the City of CV through late 2022 and currently remain on the Zero-Waste / Single-Use Plastic Ban and Bayfront Cultural Design committees.
With my involvement on the Sustainability Commission and the newly enacted California law, SB1383 of 2016, I felt the need to educate the community on how to compost food waste and keep it out of our landfill. In 2019, I piloted a successful neighborhood composting program in my cul-de-sac. Realizing this is a sustainable community action towards reducing the impact of climate change; I was hoping for someone to take this on as a non-profit business because I already had a full-time job at the LCDC. The pandemic hit, and I found myself temporarily without a job. This was the perfect time to follow my heart and teach my community how to live a sustainable lifestyle and reduce our impact on earth. I officially retired from LCDC and began South Bay Sustainable Communities (SBSC), a non-profit, in July of 2020 with the mission: “… to build healthy and sustainable communities by encouraging people to create lasting change in their daily lives through education and community engagement in environmental conservation, neighborhood composting, and sustainable urban farming.”
By the end of 2021, SBSC had composted over 31K lbs of food waste at 12 new volunteer neighborhood compost hub homes. This reduced over 21k lbs of CO2e greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from being created from food that ends up in our local landfills. We also rescued 8K lbs of edible foods from local food drives and businesses and redistributed it back into the community, at food banks, refugee centers, and homeless shelters.
In 2022, I began working with several high school science educators, and Youth 4 a Sustainable Future (Y4SF) was born. Y4SF students work at their schools sorting food waste at lunch and composting food scraps at their school, keeping that organic waste out of our landfills. What I didn’t expect was the amount of edible foods that would be rescued.
I now educate school Eco Clubs through presentations and an onsite training program. Students work the Zero Waste station teaching others how to sort food waste into organics, liquids, rescue foods, recycling, and trash. During our first year alone, this student-run program diverted 14,800 lbs (over 7 ½ tons) of food waste from the landfill, of which 13K lbs (6 ½ tons) of edible foods were redistributed back into the community. We now have an MOU with the Sweetwater Union High School District to slowly roll out into all 26 district schools, and are acquiring grants to fund our efforts. Students in Y4SF share best practices through social media between all the schools. They participate in local community fairs, outreach programs, school education programs and climate strikes at City Hall. Y4SF Students are educating their families and our community, taking ownership of their work and becoming the necessary leaders our world needs today.
In 2022, SBSC’s neighborhood composting program expanded to 16 hub home sites and composted 50K lbs (25 tons) of food waste. We also redistributed over 10K lbs of edible foods to the food-insecure community families totaling over 60K lbs (30 tons) of food waste diverted from the local landfills.
South Bay Sustainable Communities also hosts educational presentations to schools, service clubs, and community organizations throughout San Diego County. We collaborate with local services to create compost and native pollinator garden demonstration sites at schools. SBSC hosts monthly community clean-ups, guided nature hikes, sustainable garden tours, and free eco workshops to demonstrate our commitment to local environmental stewardship.
Let’s circle back to my inspiration story. It wasn’t until years later that I researched and found out Taiwan was known as “Trash Island” until the early ’90s. Three women, through education and sustainable community efforts, worked with the government and transformed the island into a healthy and sustainable place to live. Their commitment demonstrates that just a small handful of people working together can make meaningful and sustainable change in their community.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Some of the struggles we have encountered is the slowness of working with the school districts. We have many educators contacting SBSC from all over San Diego, but without an MOU or Contract from the school district, we can’t get into the schools. It takes months to a year for this process.
As with most non-profits, we rely on donations or grant opportunities. When we first started, there weren’t many grants that fit sustainable efforts. Now that the nation’s administration is aware of Climate Change and the obvious impacts, there are many opportunities to fund sustainable organizations working in the community. Grant writing is a process and takes so much time. There are many organizations applying for grants which makes it very competitive. With the funders being short staffed it takes most grantors months to get back to organizations on if they were awarded the grant. It becomes a matter of patience and persistence in applying for grants.
We are a small organization trying to grow, and we have the support from the City of CV, Assemblyman, and County Supervisors, but until these grants come through to help us hire more staff, we can’t really grow too much more. If the government can streamline the process and get the funding out to the organizations so they can grow and make a bigger impact in our community. There are so many wonderful organizations in communities helping so many people but are facing challenging times with getting funding.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out.
Funding for non-profit organizations is out there, but it’s a long process. When starting off, make sure you already have good standings and are already involved in the community with a lot of support and contacts. This is what will give you the support the first year or two before the government grants start to come through.
Contact Info:
- Website: SouthBaySustainableCommunities.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southbaysustainablecommunities/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/South-Bay-Sustainable-Communities-Network/100067954451106/
