Change Lives with Gardening, Salem Prisons

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About Lettuce Grow Garden Foundation

Location:

1631 NE Broadway #450, Portland, OR 97232, US

Mission Statement

Lettuce Grow brings gardening education to correctional facilities in the State of Oregon. Our volunteers and guest speakers educate inmates on sustainability gardening and horticulture topics. We provide classroom learning and hands-on experience in the garden. We encourage prisons to incorporate their harvests in their own kitchens and support donations to local food banks. We are passionate about the positive power of education and gardening!

The program has the potential to increase the quality of life for participating inmates, by providing healthy outdoor activities, enriching the nutrition and dietary variety of their food, and providing educational and vocational skill building opportunities.

Description

We established our first prison garden in 2008, after a year of footwork with community partners. We established our nonprofit, built a board and recruited volunteers. In 2010 we were given the opportunity to work in six more prisons, four in the Salem area, recruiting volunteers to teach and garden in each facility. We have been given nearly an acre of acre of land among these facilities to grow fresh produce for affiliates of the Oregon Food Bank. We teach classes base on curriculum provided by OSU extension and the Oregon Food Bank to provide simple education and job training to inmates and we plan to develop specific vocational training in the next year.