August Young Professional of the Month: Clarissa Libertelli

We are thrilled to highlight Clarissa Libertelli as August’s YP of the Month! Clarissa is the Community Composter Coalition Manager at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. 

Raised by environmental activists (including a Master Composter!), an urgency around the need for environmental justice was at the center of Clarissa’s academic and professional career. But when she first started working with ILSR's composting team, it was actually as a freelance artist. Clarissa now manages the 390+ strong Community Composter Coalition, a growing network of organizations keeping the compost process and use as local and distributed as possible. Clarissa is very grateful every day to support such incredibly hardworking people on the frontlines of a movement that strives to go further than just waste diversion, towards building thriving, just, and resilient communities. And she still gets to draw a worm or two from time to time!
 
The Community Composter Coalition and the USCC have collaborated over the years to bring our diverse network of community composters to the USCC's annual conference. Periodically, ILSR hosts their national Cultivating Community Composting forum in partnership with the USCC—in fact, the 2026 forum will be held February 2 in Sacramento! Clarissa and ILSR are looking forward to collaborating with the YP Group on the 2026 YP service project.
 
Congratulations to Clarissa for her outstanding contributions to the composting industry!