A large, four-acre vegetable garden and between 75 and 100 fruit trees are proving to be an excellent educational tool for inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Summit and a new source of fresh produce for more than a dozen non-profit agencies that help feed the hungry.
However, what the garden located inside the prison does not do is provide food for the inmates. Federal regulations ban prison kitchens from using food cultivated by inmates.
However, instead of eliminating the garden when the food no longer could be used in the prison’s kitchen, FCI officials decided to give the produce to local non-profit agencies like the Community Kitchen, the Salvation Army and the Connonsburg-Trinity United Methodist Church’s food pantry.
During the growing season, hundreds of pounds of produce — corn, sweet potatoes, snap beans, okra, apples, etc. — leave the prison each week and either is used to prepare free meals for the hungry at the Community Kitchen or is given directly to the needy through non-profit agencies. River Cities Harvest, a non-profit agency that regularly picks up excess food from restaurants and supermarkets, distributes the donated food to the non-profit agencies.
While they do not get to consume the food they grow, the 27 inmates assigned to the garden detail are learning gardening, landscaping, tree trimming and other skills that could help them find jobs once they are released from prison.
And if they study their lessons, pass the tests and properly tend the garden as a community service, the inmates could become certified Kentucky Master Gardeners. That’s much more than just a title. While no college credit in given, the demanding work required to become a Master Gardener is similar to an two-year associate’s degree in horticulture, said Lori Bowling, who teaches the Master Gardening program through the Boyd County Extension Service and is one of many agricultural agents and experts involved with the garden at the prison.
Inmate Stanley Byrd said he knew quite a bit about garden before being sentenced to prison but says he still has learned a lot by working in the prison garden.
Inmate Dennis Story said he knew nothing about gardening when he started working in the garden but thought it would be a good way to keep in shape. It’s done more than that.
“It gives me respect for farmers,” Story said. “With this you work from dirt to harvest ... It’s good for me physically and mentally and I get a good night’s sleep.”
Not only is the program helping the prisoners by teaching them marketable skills, it’s good source of fresh fruits and vegetables for the Community Kitchen and area food banks. Here’s hoping the garden continues to produce for decades to come.
Editorials
A source of food — 09/04/09
Garden teaches inmates skills while helping to feed hungry
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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