Project greasing skids for student activism

OILED UP: A team of students recycles waste cooking oil at the Westerly Transfer Station.  From left: John Perino, Vanessa Bertsch, Cassandra Lin, Miles Temel and Isaac Kaufman. / COURTESY JASON LIN
OILED UP: A team of students recycles waste cooking oil at the Westerly Transfer Station. From left: John Perino, Vanessa Bertsch, Cassandra Lin, Miles Temel and Isaac Kaufman. / COURTESY JASON LIN

Project Turn Grease Into Fuel has had such success building a local following that the teens involved plan to branch out across New England.
“The way that we designed the program, it sustains itself,” said Cassandra Lin, an original member of the 7-year-old project who now attends the Williams School in New London, Conn. “It really just needs maintenance, so we can still be involved once we’re in college.”
John Perino, another original member now at Westerly High School, said, “We want TGIF present in all six New England states in the next five years. We know it’s a big goal, but when we go out to do these pitches, we build a lot of connections, so we think it’s possible.”
Making pitches over the past six years to restaurants and towns from Westerly, Warwick and South Kingstown, to southeastern Connecticut and Fall River, Perino, Lin and several other students have successfully signed on 132 restaurants and 15 municipalities. Early on, they arranged to have Newport Biodiesel collect the waste oil from restaurants or transfer stations and refine it for free.
The proceeds businesses and towns would otherwise pay to a refiner – adding up to more than $126,000 to date – are instead donated to charities and shelters, which in turn provide home-heating assistance to those in need.
As the group enters its seventh year, the project has collected more than 160,000 gallons of waste oil, leading to the creation of 130,000 gallons of biodiesel, said Perino’s mother, Barbara Perino. She is also executive vice president of operations for The Washington Trust Co., and director of the nonprofit Westerly Innovations Network, which provides some basic financial support.
The effort has offset approximately 2.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere, she added. All six students involved today (three others have participated in years past) are now sophomores in high school. They include Westerly High students Taylor Fiore-Chettiar, Vanessa Bertsch, and Issac Kaufmann, as well as Miles Temel, who attends Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick.
At the Hilton Providence, Shula’s 347 Grille signed up this past summer to participate, said hotel General Manager Doug Koenig. The restaurant produces a fair amount of grease, depending on occupancy and events going on, he said.
“What they’re doing is really great,” he said. “It didn’t take much convincing. There’s really no additional expense to the hotel. And money involved goes to the people who need it most.”
Having honed their pitches for years, Perino and Lin faced judges this past May in Washington, D.C., in a national “Banking on Youth” contest, which sought to reward a sustainable entrepreneurial idea that directly benefits society. The Consumer Bankers Association Foundation sponsored the contest.
Lin and Perino won a $15,000 grant, beating out college-aged competitors.
Asked how they did it, Lin said, “We had a bit of a ‘cute factor’ going on. But we were able to engage the audience and make them laugh and connect with them.”
“We made a Power Point [presentation],” added Perino, “because five minutes is a pretty restrictive time period to present years … of work.”
Mom and pop restaurants attracted to the community service mission tend to sign on quickly, Lin and Perino said, while chain stores with remote layers of management are usually a hard sell.
Originally, as the project was being conceived in 2008, TGIF offered to have the grease taken away for free, when restaurants still had to pay to have it collected, Barbara Perino said. Then, in 2009, the market changed, and competitive grease collectors ended up paying restaurants for their grease, though some restaurants still get paid by refiners to take away their waste oil. “By that time we were fairly [well] established,” she explained. “Many of the restaurant [owners] said it was such a good project, for the little they were being paid, they were willing to donate that to us.”
In 2012, Rhode Island mandated requiring restaurants to send their grease to recyclers.
The mandate came at the urging of the students, then in middle school, under the guidance of the Westerly Innovations Network junior team. Students testified at the Statehouse and even met President Barack Obama at the White House. Jason Lin, Cassandra’s father, actively supported the student effort.
Today, besides restaurants, corporations that provide food service for their employees, including Hasbro Inc. in Pawtucket and the Amica Mutual Insurance Co. in Lincoln, have also signed onto Project TGIF.
Barbara Perino and Jason Lin, along with other parents, helped the students get the project off the ground in the early years by driving them to the places where the students would need to make their pitches. At age 15, all six students are still too young to drive, so the parents remain involved, Barbara Perino said, though students rarely need the coaching on how to make a sales pitch.
And while covering New England remains a lofty goal, students, parents and involved businesses want to see the initiative persist.
“It’s working great for us,” said Bob Morton, chairman of the board at Newport Biodiesel. “Our most important thing is to get as much grease as we can. … I hope it continues.” •

No posts to display