4-H Gives Incarcerated Youth the Freedom to Grow Vegetables
By AgDaily
Youth up to 17 years of age who have been arrested or adjudicated for breaking the law are housed at juvenile detention facilities. In Sonora, California, while the young people are being detained, the staff at Mother Lode Regional Juvenile Detention Facility strive to create a safe environment for the residents to make positive changes in their lives.
To teach the youths about the food system, JoLynn Miller, UC Cooperative Extension’s 4-H youth development advisor for Tuolumne County, and volunteers began visiting weekly in 2016 to help the residents develop a garden at the detention facility. With grants from a local community group, the youths have learned how to grow their own vegetables and prepare them to eat.
“The youth enjoy the educational aspect of the 4-H program and are excited whenever we harvest a new vegetable,” Edgar Ortega, juvenile corrections officer, wrote in a letter. “When the vegetables are ready, some of the youth along with the help and supervision of the staff make a new culinary experience for their peers.”
Bonnie Plants donated tomato, garlic, fava bean, onion, and basil seedlings. Miller trained volunteers who work with youth at the facility in the same positive youth-development concepts that 4-H volunteers use in 4-H club activities.
“The youth planned and built the raised beds using power drills,” Miller said, acknowledging that it is rare for power tools to be allowed for use by residents in a detention facility. “They worked with the correctional officers to install drip irrigation in the garden.”
At the end of last season, Miller gave the residents a cooking lesson using green tomatoes and basil from the garden. “We made fried green tomatoes and pesto,” she said.
“We sincerely appreciate the efforts 4-H volunteers provide to enrich the lives of all youth in our community,” said Dan Hawks, chief probation officer in Sonora. “Not only do these projects provide real-world, hands-on instruction and skills to incarcerated youth, but it also provides them with an opportunity to reap the rewards of their own efforts. There is no lesson that can match the sense of accomplishment youth realize when they are able to harvest and consume crops they planted and tended themselves.”
In addition to teaching the residents gardening and cooking, Miller provided their teacher and staff with other 4-H curriculum, including mindfulness.
“The mindfulness program helps the youth develop coping skills and become more cognitively aware of themselves and their surroundings,” Ortega said in his letter. “The youth are open-minded about the different techniques and lessons of the program and, at times, I catch them practicing the different mindfulness technique on their own. I know the mindfulness program is great for our youth because in their own home environments they don’t always have a role model to teach them proper coping skills.”