Chris Wood worked for more than 15 years as a corporate attorney. A lifelong Houstonian, he attended UVA for undergrad and UT Austin for law school. He and his wife Debbie Yee share two daughters.
Joe Villa worked for more than 15 years for a leading international logistics company. A lifelong Texan, he has a degree in business from UT Pan American. He and his wife Linda Yee share one son.
Just like many of us, Chris and Joe were faced with a personal decision: “Where do I put this trash?” For most of us, we confront this dilemma dozens of times each day and address it thoughtlessly as we were taught when we were young. For some, that means a trash can. For others, it means differentiating between two receptacles: trash or recycling.
We want to help people think about the incredible resource excess organic materials can be within the community. To learn to see excess food not as trash, but as a resource with nutrients to be returned to the soil. And we hope that together we can dedicate this resource to the highest and best use, whether that is backyard composting, composting at a community or urban garden, or using a larger facility for your Houston composting.
The answer depends on the context. In the 1960s, the definition was pretty literal: JFK laid out a challenge to go to the moon, during a speech right here in Houston, and America met that challenge. In another context, you can ask any baseball player or fan you know, and they’ll describe the longest ball they’ve ever seen hit as a moonshot.
For us, moonshot refers not to a thing but to a way of thinking. It’s an approach to solving a complex problem with an elegant, simple solution. It means not shying away from something that’s hard. We want to think about the environmental impact of human behaviors and ask, “What are some small changes we can all make that will have a large impact?”
We are starting with produced food that is not consumed.