Bard College’s Prison Initiative: organic food politics!
Earlier this month, I went to New York State’s Woodbourne Correctional Facility to accept the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College and to deliver a brief commencement address to incarcerated graduates of the Bard Prison Initiative.
Bard’s program is one of the few privately supported prison education programs in the country (the New York Times recently discussed a similar program at Sing Sing).
Bard started the program after the government cut off funding for prison education programs in the mid-1990s.
Bard has awarded liberal arts associates’ and bachelors’ degrees to nearly 200 men and women inside three long-term maximum security prisons and two transitional, medium-security prisons (Woodbourne is medium security).
None of these graduates—not one—has returned to prison after being paroled.
Why me, why there, and why discuss it here? Participants in this program started an organic garden and are growing food for the prison with the surplus going to local food banks.
In my speech, I said:
“John Dewey was a passionate champion of liberal democracy.”
“Dewey argued that education is good for individuals, but that it also has an important social purpose—that of encouraging students to become active and effective members of a democratic society….”
“In growing a garden and producing food for yourselves and for others under these particular and peculiar circumstances, you are carrying out John Dewey’s ideals better than he ever could have imagined.”
I was not kidding when I said that no award has ever meant so much to me. It was a privilege to be there.
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New York: NGO Working Group on Food and Hunger, U.N.
Policy lunch talk in the series “the future of global food policy,” UN church Centre, 777 UN Plaza @44th St and 1st Ave, 1:00-2:45.
Comments
What a great program! Thanks for sharing it with us.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Marion Nestle and fadsandfancies.com, Festival of Food. Festival of Food said: Bard College's Prison Initiative: organic food politics!: http://bit.ly/9dQumk [...]
This is the first time a blog post has moved me to tears. Thank you for supporting this program and for speaking to the graduates; but mostly for for your sentiment that the award is very important to you.
I never thought much about prison until someone close to me spent just a little time (90 days) in one of them. It was such a shock to my entire system to see the devastation of humanity that the system brings about and so wonderful to hear about something positive being injected into it.
There is a wonderful movie with Clive Owen and Helen Mirren, called GREENFINGERS about some British prisoners who started gardening and eventually entered a very prestigious garden competition. There is something profound in connecting with the soil and it can be transforming. It is much the same where gardens have been instituted in troubled schools.
Thank you again, for highlighting this wonderful program.
[...] she received the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College. Accepting the award at New York State’s Woodbourne Correctional Facility, Dr Nestle gave the commencement address as [...]
yay you. its so easy to be successful and forget..forget about real life, real people. love this post, love your humanity. If I were you i would have felt all that to. Good people rock. maye we one day have mor power!
Some days I have more hope for the future of Humanity than others. Today would be such a day, thank you for this touching story.
Congratulations! I think knowing how to grow your own food is the most basic human right.
Sounds like a fabulous program. Thanks for sharing! Would like to see this concept embraced more widely in the correctional system…maybe it could make such a dramatic difference in other places as well.
Congratulations on your award. That program deserves special recognition, as well. Thanks for the post.
Love this “good news” story!! Congratulations to you, and thanks for sharing about this successful prison program.
Canada has had “prison farms” since at least the ’80′s, where prisoners learn farming techniques and provide the prisons with food. Our current government is in the process of shutting them down. Out of pure, vile meanness as far as I can tell.
Way to go Marion. You should be so proud. How often do we see these kind of positive initiatives taken in the jail systems and with these stunning results. Tell me why this is not spreading like wildfire! Thanks for posting.
Dear Dr. Nestle, congratulations on this meaninful award. Once upon a time, at least one day a week I was the environmental and nutrition educator for the Center for Comunity Alternatives (19th st. Manhattan), an alternative to women incarceration. I dedicated at least once a month to take “my ladies” to the Union sq farmer market….I missed those days when they were hearing about good eating habits for the first time. Some liked to try my “crazy” green salads where grains, fruits, nuts and veggies were mixed. That was all we could do since we really did not have a kitchen…..I wished I could do more
[...] in the mid-1990s, not a single graduate has returned to prison after being paroled, according to Marion Nestle, who recently gave a commencement speech to incarcerated graduates at Woodbourne Correctional [...]
[...] more about Nestles’ award at: http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/06/bard-colleges-prison-initiative-organic-food-politics/ and the Bard Prison Imitative at: [...]
[...] about Nestle’s award and the Bard Prison Initiative here and here. [...]