James Corwin

Co-Director

James is Co-Director of the RI School Recycling Project. Jim’s career spans decades in both radio and marketing. In partnership with the RI Department of Environmental Management, he coordinated numerous Earth Day cleanups, promotions and concerts. Along with Chris, Jim launched the RI School Recycling Project (formerly Club) in 2001. Jim has a BA degree from Union College, and in addition to managing radio stations, served on the board of AS220 for 10 years and is a member of the Wood-Pawcatuck River Association. In 2019, with a grant from The RI Attorney General’s Office, he led a project to measure food waste in RI schools, and so began a passion to divert it with “Get Food Smart, RI.”

Warren Heyman

Organizing Director

Warren is Organizing Director of the RI School Recycling Project. Warren is a recent retiree from UniteHere, the North American union for food service and hospitality workers. While employed at UniteHere, he trained workers to organize unions, negotiate union agreements, and work with local community and political leaders. Prior to that, he was a VISTA volunteer in Worcester and Chelsea, Massachusetts where he organized low-income neighborhoods and trained neighborhood leaders to fight for and win improvements. He is also currently a member of the Cranston Neighborhood Tree Group and the Edgewood/Pawtuxet Village Wildflower group. He has been married since the early 1980s with two grown children and a dog, and loves riding his bike in his free time.

Renee Chicoine

Secretary of the Board & Google Drive Manager

Renee is a retired IT Project Manager. She currently serves as RISRP Board Secretary. In addition, she has leveraged her experience working for IT start up organizations to help RISRP build out processes and procedures that can be shared by all staff. This has allowed the organization to grow more rapidly, while ensuring consistency and quality in delivery of our services. In her spare time, Renee enjoys cycling locally, and around the globe, as much as feasible.

Kendra Gay

Operations Director & Facilitator

Kendra is both a Facilitator and the Operations Director for the RI School Recycling Project. Kendra has a BS in Business Management from the University of Hartford. She worked in local radio and television for 10 years before taking a break to raise her 2 children. Upon returning to work, Kendra became the office manager for a thriving bakery in Providence and still holds that position today. Kendra is a 2023 graduate of URI’s Food Recover course, where she was introduced to the Get Food Smart, RI program and began volunteering. In February of 2024, Kendra became a facilitator for RISRP and has launched six schools to date and is on track to launch another 6 before the end of the 2024-2025 school year. In her spare time, Kendra is a commissioner on the Lincoln Conservation Commission and is a board member of the Northern RI Food Pantry. Kendra finds that working at RISRP is not like work at all, it is time spent doing good for the school communities and the environment.

Nicole Mainville

Facilitator & Data Administrator

Nicole was born in Montreal, Québec and later moved to Rhode Island. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business and an MBA from the University of Rhode Island and spent many years working in technology and project management. After stepping away from her corporate career, she became a Master Gardener and developed a strong passion for gardening, composting, and reducing waste. Nicole has been working with the Rhode Island School Recycling Project (RISRP) since September 2024 because she believes small, everyday actions can make a big difference. She enjoys helping students learn simple, practical ways to care for the environment and build lifelong sustainable habits.

Stella Piasecki

Facilitator

Stella is a Facilitator with the Rhode Island School Recycling Project. They have been working with RISRP since January 2025. Stella is currently the Compost Program Coordinator at the Eastern RI Conservation District (ERICD), and in this role, they work in partnership with RISRP, bringing the Get Food Smart Program to schools in Newport and Bristol counties. Stella run’s all of ERICD’s compost programs including the first three municipal curbside composting programs in the state. Prior to this role, Stella worked as an educator at the Audubon Society of RI. In this role, they had the opportunity to work with educational animals such as owls and turtles, presenting about these animals to students of all ages. Stella earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Skidmore College, where they majored in environmental studies, with a focus on environmental education. They are thrilled to be bringing their passion for compost and environmental education to the RISRP team.

Susan Rittling

Coordinator

Susan Rittling has a long interest in sustainability and the importance of recycling and composting. She served for more than 15 years on the Solid Waste Advisory Committee in the town of Brookline, MA, advising the Select Board on best practices in solid waste management. The committee worked closely with the Department of Public Works to improve recycling rates, increase composting options for the town, and bring composting into the Brookline public schools. She is mostly retired from a career in biomedical research and administration, recently focused on immunology and bone biology. Much of her free time is spent in her quarter acre organic-ish vegetable garden in Hopkinton. She is also a member of the Board of the Hopkinton Land Trust, and does a lot of hiking and biking.

Kelly DeAngelis

Facilitator

Kelly holds a M.A. in International Relations and Environmental Policy from Boston University and B.A. in History from the University of Rhode Island. In her early career in demand response, Kelly worked with both electric utilities and commercial and industrial clients to reduce peak demand on the electrical grid, avoiding blackouts and reliance on emergency fossil fuel power plants.
After six years in the energy industry in Boston, Kelly returned to Rhode Island to focus on sustainability through the school nutrition program in Providence. She supported the district’s Health and Wellness Committee and Farm to School initiatives. Highlights included bringing indoor garden carts to 18 schools in the city, running a summer sustainability job program for high schoolers, and building a school garden with students. Before joining, Kelly worked with Jim and Warren on sorting stations and eventually to implement composting in all 40 school kitchens in Providence .
As the mother of two young children, Kelly loves working with students of all ages. She spends her spare time in the garden and with family and friends. Kelly believes the magic of the program is in the collaboration and positive action. She has always enjoyed working with people to create a brighter, more sustainable future.

Amelia Lufrano

Facilitator

Amelia Lufrano is a Facilitator with the Rhode Island School Recycling Project. After moving to Rhode Island in 2024, she completed the Food Recovery of Rhode Island course with URI Extension, where she learned about the work of RISRP. She holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies with a Food Studies Certificate from Dickinson College and is passionate about building local, regenerative, and equitable food systems. Amelia has experience working on numerous small-scale organic farms and urban gardens. She is also an environmental educator having worked as a farm-based educator, a FoodCorps Service Member, and a nature-preschool teacher. At RISRP, she has helped develop Compost Celebration Month initiatives and teaches hands-on vermicomposting and gardening lessons. She is excited to help expand school gardens throughout the state and increase access to healthy, fresh, and culturally relevant foods for all students.

Gail Meisner

Facilitator & Database Administrator

Gail is a Facilitator and Data Specialist for the RI School Recycling Project. Gail has a B.S. from the University of Michigan in Environmental and Social Biology and an MA from URI in Marine Affairs, with a focus on Coastal Zone Management and Environment Impact Analysis
Gail’s career was focused on data analytics and program evaluation, primarily looking at public health initiatives at the state level. Not surprisingly, the physical environment and access to clean, healthy outdoor spaces are a consistent and key determinant of health outcomes. Gail’s experience also includes database design, and she has co-authored two trade books on database theory. Recently Gail became a “Food Smart” Facilitator working with public schools to establish and enhance their recycling and composting programs, a role about which she says, “This hands-on experience is providing a new and fascinating perspective on sustainable practices in educational institutions. It is especially meaningful to be sharing a commitment to recycling and composting with the next generation.”

Sharon Capuano

Facilitator

Sharon Capuano is a healthcare leader and URI Extension Master Gardener who brings over three decades of clinical, public health, and education experience to the Rhode Island School Recycling Project. As a facilitator, she works with school communities to help students reduce food waste, recycle, and compost by launching cafeteria sorting stations and collaborating with principals, faculty, and staff to create practical, sustainable systems
Drawing on her background as a family nurse practitioner, campus health services director, and Rhode Island Department of Health liaison during the Covid-19 response, Sharon is skilled at leading cross-disciplinary initiatives and driving behavior change in school communities. She completed the Food Recovery for Rhode Island course and the URI Extension Master Gardener Program, integrating this training with her healthcare expertise to turn everyday cafeteria routines into hands-on lessons in sustainability and environmental stewardship.

Sylvia Skerry

Facilitator

Sylvia is a facilitator with the Rhode Island School Recycling Project. Before joining RISRP in 2025, Sylvia earned her Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University, with a focus on domestic education policy and the application of behavioral science to policy design. Prior to graduate school, Sylvia worked with UNICEF in Jordan, managing the implementation of youth and adolescent development programs in Syrian refugee camps.

As a native Rhode Islander, Sylvia is excited to return home and apply her education and experience to connect with young people and help them make meaningful changes in their schools that will foster a better future for their communities.

Greg Thuotte

Facilitator

Greg has a BS in Business/Marketing from Northeastern University along with many years of executive experience in the toy industry as a Buyer at Ames Department Stores and various product sales and development executive roles. Greg decided to retire from corporate life in 2021 and devote full time to a passion for environmental causes, feeding the hungry and in free time cycling and the arts. Taking on roles with the Scituate Sustainability Committee, Conservation Commission, SVDP Food Bank at St Raymond’s in Providence, ushering at PPAC then met with Warren Heyman in March of 2023. This led to our first launch in Scituate and eventually becoming a Facilitator in the Scituate, Foster, Glocester areas as well as advocating and helping wherever possible at the RI School Recycling Project. It’s great to be involved with such a motivated group of people of all ages from kids in elementary schools, teachers and the staff and volunteers at the RI School Recycling Project!

Abbie Garrels

Coordinator

Abbie was born and raised in RI. She graduated from Bates College and moved to Salt Lake City, UT, where she worked as a social worker at the University of Utah Hospital for 9 years. She enjoyed exploring the mountains with her dogs before moving back to RI in 2015 to raise her family.
Abbie spends her summers in Maine working as a unit director at a summer camp. She loves being outside, mentoring the staff and building a camp community that creates opportunities for growth and fun. During the school year when she is not driving her kids to activities, she works for the RI Recycling Project teaching students that their small changes can have a big impact. It is a privilege to work in the schools and be surrounded by the students’ curiosity and wonder.

Kate Tompkins

Coordinator

Kate received her education at Rutgers University and the University of Rhode Island. Before joining the Rhode Island School Recycling Project, Kate was a stay-at-home parent to 3 kids and a regular volunteer in the Lincoln and greater Rhode Island community. She has been a Girl Scout Troop Leader for 12 years, as well as being the Service Unit Manager for Lincoln GS. Kate is involved with Boy Scouts, as well and has been a regular volunteer in the Lincoln School System at many levels. She also volunteers with the Manville Share Shack and the Northern Rhode Island Food Pantry.

As a perpetual volunteer and an avid hiker, joining the RISRP has been an opportunity for Kate to combine her passion for helping others with her love of nature and environmental advocacy, as well as helping to educate the younger generations.