Organizers of a leaf collection event scheduled for Saturday in Slippery Rock have postponed the event until Nov. 2.

“We're looking at an eighty-five percent chance of rain and the weather will be in the forties,” Slippery Rock Mayor Jondavid Longo said.

Longo said he discussed the postponement with the Robert A. Macoskey Center at Slippery Rock University, which will receive the collected leaves for use in their compost mounds. He said it may also be too early for optimal leaf collection.

“We thought there would be a considerable amount of leaves on the ground,” Longo said.

Longo said leaves have instead stayed on trees, possibly because of a warmer fall season.

The rescheduled event will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Volunteers will travel in trucks and collect leaves in biodegradable bags to take to the center.

Longo said pre-raking leaves would be appreciated, if possible, so volunteers would only have to bag the leaves.

“We ask that our neighbors at least put the leaves in a neat pile,” Longo said. “Even if not, we'll just rake them up in a pile and put them in bags ourselves.”

From the homes, the leaves would be taken to the Macoskey Center, where they would be used as “brown” material in the university's Windrow Compost System, according to Shawn Davis, an assistant professor for parks conservation and recreational therapy.

Davis said the “green” material, the base of the compost that produces high levels of nitrogen, are a lot of preconsumer food waste. He said these are the chopped-off bits of carrots, cabbage and other fruits and veggies, and a lot of their compost material comes from the university's food service.

The brown materials are things like leaves, cardboard and sawdust.

“(This system) is almost on an industrial scale,” Davis said.

Davis said the center used to run a collection by using a special truck with a vacuum that sucked leaves from the curb, but that truck broke down last year.

“I think last year, we did not get the brown because that's when the truck was out of commission.”

Davis said there needs to be more green material in the pile than brown, but the compost can become too rich in nitrogen.

“Already we're seeing that we have too high of a nitrogen content,” Davis said. “Essentially it would make our compost unusable in its current form.”

Davis said without a collection this year, the center would have had to buy sawdust to make the product usable. He said buying the sawdust would have defeated the purpose of having a compost system that recycles material.

“For us and the mentality of the Macoskey Center, this is a wonderful win,” Davis said. “It's a great way to bridge that gap between the university and the community and show that we are one entity.”

Longo said he hopes more leaves will fall and better weather rolls in Nov. 2. Originally between 15 and 20 volunteers were ready for Saturday, but Longo knows some high school students may not be able to attend the cleanup because it falls on a weekday, a Friday.

“Depending on the volunteer force, that'll determine how much ground we'll cover,” he said.

Longo said the group of volunteers is also a nice mixture of residents and college students.

“This is one of those instances where we did a good job of bridging the gap” he said. “It's a nice, cooperative effort that involves everyone in town.”

He said he's still hoping for a good volunteer turnout, but the more people help the better Slippery Rock will look when it's all done.

“I'm really focused on getting downtown cleaned up and beautiful,” Longo said.