I’m guilty of eavesdropping. The other night on my way back home from an event on design-driven education, I overheard a conversation on the T where a woman was saying to the young man next to her something along the lines of:
“You’re not going to be making lots of money, but you are going to be doing something that you feel really good about with other people who feel the same way.”
In my mind I was imagining what nonprofit cause she was championing, and I unashamedly continued to eavesdrop from my seat across theirs. The woman and her neighbor then started talking about innovation and The Daily Table. I had heard Doug Rauch, Founder and President of The Daily Table, speak at the Newton Needham Chamber last year and thought he was great.
After the woman got off at her stop, I decided to change my seat and become her companion’s new neighbor. I asked him what they had been talking about, because I was intrigued. It turns out that he is a new worker-owner at a company called CERO, which stands for Cooperative Energy, Recycling and Organics.
CERO is a bilingual green business comprised of a team of local Dorchester and Roxbury residents who all earn the same hourly pay and make decisions democratically. They are an organic waste hauling company that helps restaurants and grocery stores comply with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s commercial food-waste ban that requires businesses generating more than a ton of food scraps per week to divert them from landfills.
So this is a bit of a random story, but I thought the more people who know about this cool business, the better! I can’t wait to discover what I am going to learn on my next T ride. <: