The Development of a Backyard Composting Project Through Community Engagement

It can be argued that public forums are a valuable and essential tool for Cooperative Extension pro-fessionals. This article narrates the innovative use of the public forum action steps outlined in Kahl's (2016) "A Convener's Guide to Hosting a Public Forum". The primary objective was to address illegal dumping and litter-ing concerns with the Extension professional's role to engage the community. The resulting "Backyard Compost-ing Project" demonstrated that public forums are valuable in creatively engaging urban audiences. Ultimately the authors illustrate how a community concern can be addressed using innovative programming to reach what Exten-sion considers to be non-traditional urban populations.