SEED project hopes to improve community

Coming from a small rural community in El Salvador, Glenda Maribel Alfaro Salmeron’s composting project landed her next to former President Bill Clinton Saturday night with a 50 percent chance of winning a national competition.

Salmeron’s project, Compost Methods to Improve Soil Fertility (CMISF), went up against 15 universities in the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGIU) challenge in St. Louis last week — and made it to the finals. Arizona State University’s DREAMZone project ultimately took first place.

“I was so happy,” Salmeron said.  “When I was on stage I could feel all of the support from everyone that voted. I also knew that they would all be so excited about it.  It was amazing to represent my family, country, MHCC and the SEED Program at CGIU,” said Salmeron.

When Salmeron was introduced by Clinton, the former president said, “I’m very proud of her. She’s the first community college student ever to reach the finals.” Clinton hugged Salmeron while posing for photos, along with the student from ASU and Stephen Colbert, the event host.

Salmeron and seven other SEED students went to the conference in St. Louis and then returned for a reception for Salmeron Monday in the Student Union.

Salmeron, a second-year Scholarship for Education and Economic Development (SEED) student, began CMISF as part of the SEED program’s requirement that each student “develop a project that we can implement when we return to our countries,” adding that she has been working for the past year on her project with her instructors and fellow SEED students.

“As leaders from our home countries, we are all dedicated to making positive change to help our families and communities,” Salmeron said in an email interview Thursday.

Salmeron’s CMISF project will take place in her hometown of Jardines de la Nueva, where the project will improve the soils to improve the town’s harvest and thereby increase economic benefits and improve the standard of living for  the town. Salmeron said the current soil in Jardines de la Nueva is very claylike, which puddles water when it rains and dries out and cracks when it’s hot outside, neither of which are beneficial to growing produce or other agricultural products.

“I considered many project ideas and learned a lot from my MHCC classes and from community organizations through workshops and community service.  I also took a soils class last fall where I learned about types of soils, methods for composting and the benefits of healthy soils on production,” said Salmeron.

She added, “All of this knowledge helped inspire my idea for composting in my home community. It is an inexpensive and easy project to implement, but the benefits will be big!”

The CMISF project will distribute composting bins as well as compost education to the roughly 100 people of Jardines de la Nueva.

Salmeron said her CMISF project will take about 15 months to complete, but she added that she might expand her project scope to other communities near hers.

“The biggest effort we will need is for families to learn and start a habit of composting. Other than that, it won’t require a lot of labor,” said Salmeron.

Of her experience with the CGIU and the conference at St. Louis, Salmeron said, “I learned a lot about other countries, cultures and world problems.  I met other young people and learned about their projects for positive change,” adding that the sessions she attended taught her about marketing opportunities for her project.

“It was a wonderful educational and leadership opportunity,” she said of the conference.

Advocate Staff