The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has named Island Grown Schools and the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School as a winner of its Food Recovery Challenge award. The recognition is for work in 2020 on food separation implementation and programming.

Eighteen awards were made to organizations nationwide, with four going to New England, according to a press release. Island Grown Schools and the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School were the sole winner in the K-12 Schools category for 2020.

Through the 2020 and 2021 Food Recovery Challenge program. approximately  1.2 million tons of food was prevented from entering landfills or incinerators, $61.5  million  was avoided in tipping fees and the amount of wasted food contributing to methane emissions was reduced.

Island Grown Schools is a program of Island Grown Initiative.