The work is public. The story is documented.
Journalists, universities, neighborhood publications, and public agencies have followed Brainplate Grows from restaurant food scraps to living soil, community growing, and water restoration.
Hear the story in Elliott’s own words.
These local conversations feature Brainplate Grows founder Elliott Gilfillan discussing Brainplate’s origin, methods, and community vision.
Building Soil & Community
Elliott explains how Brainplate grew from a restaurant-kitchen problem into a neighborhood-powered vision for compost, food access, learning, and healthier soil.
Watch on YouTubeIt’s Easy to Compost in Madison, We Promise
Host Bianca Martin talks with Elliott about turning household and restaurant scraps into “garden gold”—flipping the familiar farm-to-table story into table-to-farm.
Listen to the episodeReported by Madison-area media.
Brainplate Grows wants to make it easy for restaurants to compost
A detailed profile of Brainplate’s 2020 origin, Troy Farm process, bicycle collection, volunteer model, and independently reported 2024 impact.
↗Food Scraps — Disposal? Landfill? Compost?
Neighborhood reporting introduces Elliott Gilfillan’s Brainplate Grows project and its plan for an accessible, volunteer-powered food-scrap collection station at the Northside Farmers Market.
↗Madison group launches floating island to clean lagoon
Television news coverage of the Clearwater Collective pilot led by Aaron Cutler and Elliott Gilfillan at Tenney Park Lagoon.
↗Troy Farm: a hub of nonprofits and micro-agricultural industries
Neighborhood reporting identifies Brain Plate Grows as the community-composting member of the Troy Farm Collaborative.
↗Documented beyond the headlines.
University work and government records provide additional confirmation of Brainplate’s composting, grant-supported infrastructure, community partnerships, and ecological projects.
Intern Project: Composting Communication
A firsthand university account of working with Brainplate’s volunteer-run Troy Farm operation.
Rooted Agroforestry Project
The City names Brainplate as the composting collaborator whose finished material supported a youth-planted neighborhood food forest.
Organics Management Grant
A county grant summary documents support for Brainplate’s bicycle-trailer collection capacity and operating work.
Floating-island pilot approval
The public record documents City approval of WI Clearwater Collective’s Biohaven pilot for Tenney Lagoon.
Follow the work beyond this website.
This page gathers third-party reporting and public documentation so donors, participating kitchens, volunteers, and neighbors can learn more from sources that Brainplate Grows does not control. Inclusion here does not imply that a publisher or agency operates or endorses Brainplate.