ECI Garden Harvest program helps feed families in need in Somerset County
WESTOVER, Md. – Food insecurity has been striking families across the US but the Somerset County Health Department and the Eastern Correctional Institution are stepping up to help with their Garden Harvest program.
“We came out and we got the radishes and most of the kale onions, we picked up all the squash stuff, got it, and weighed it, and we did the turnips, the beets,” said program participant James Davis, describing the process that he and a team of incarcerated people went through to help harvest over 2,000 pounds of fresh produce that they grew in the prison’s garden.
Those vegetables went to the Somerset County Health Department, which helped to stage a drive-through food bank drive, with leftovers given to the Adopt A Block program here in Salisbury.
“Keeps you mentally stable, you’re not sitting inside all day and locked yourself out here most of the day, you know, and all the fresh air you get here,” Davis said speaking to the help the program has given him during his sentence.
ECI Warden William Bailey tells us it’s a program that seems over 15,000 pounds grown every year, and says it’s important for the prison to help give back to its community.
“I love supporting the community that we live in. I love to see the look on these men’s faces, as they harvest these crops for the community, for those that are less fortunate, I think it does them a lot of good. I think it does our staff a lot of good to be more involved in our community,” he said.
Davis tells 47ABC they take great pride in their work in the garden and is glad it is making a positive impact.
“It’s fulfilling like that, but it’s also fulfilling that, you know, you help some single mother out there that can’t worry for all about groceries. They can get their stuff and feed the kids,” Davis said.
In attendance at the donation event, was the Maryland Secretary for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Carolyn J. Scruggs, who says she has been a big proponent of the unique program and its benefits.
“It’s definitely a benefit for our incarcerated population because they thrive on knowing that they have created something that has life, and not only have they created a living thing, but that living thing can also be used to nurture a human being, so they are now part of the nurturing and the nutrition process of all of the community here in Somerset County,” she said.
ECI has donated more than 45 tons of produce to Somerset and Wicomico counties since starting the program.
Warden Bailey tells 47ABC the program is funded through a grant from Somerset County, but the prison is always looking for donations of plant seeds, fertilizer and more to keep the program running for the future.
