prison gardening program in SF
JULIE ELFVING (ELFVING.JULIE@epamail.epa.gov)
Thu, 24 Aug 1995 13:58:06 -0400
There has recently been a series of items about prison gardening
programs, and someone was asking about the San Francisco program.
The woman who founded the San Francisco efforts was a guest speaker
at the Prairie Festival and the Land Institute in Salina Kansas this past
May. I was looking among my things here at the office to find her name,
but must have the program notes at home. She was a counselor at the
San Jose County Jail, I think, and came up with the idea of turning some
of the unused land surrounding the jail into garden plots. The program
apparently was very successful in giving prisoners a sense of self esteem,
that they can be useful, make a difference, and that sort of thing. She
then helped organize the gardening effort outside the prison for the
released prisoners to work in. I don't remember the details, but they are
paid a wage and supply organically grown produce to restaurants and so
on. Apparently this has been a very effective way to "rehabilitate" some
otherwise "hard" cases. She then managed to get the San Francisco
neighborhood tree planting contract for these released men. Prior to this,
trees in poor neighborhoods were being ripped out almost as soon as
they were planted, but withpeople from the "hood" directly involved in
the planting program, there is some heightened sense of "ownership" in
the plantings and, as she described it, the survival rate of the young trees
has gone up significantly. It was an inspiring series of success stories.