How Prison Gardens Are Changing Hearts

This scenario is true … but it's also a job most would decline.

The scorching sun is unrelenting. The workers shovel the hardened ground using whatever modest garden tools they can find. Some loosen the dirt with repurposed broom handles. Others dig with their bare hands, pounding out clots of dirt to transform them into workable soil. Blistering sunburn and suffocating humidity are just part of the job — a job they volunteered to do. There's even a waiting list for the chance to work 10-hour days in the dirt and heat.

In the shadow of penitentiary walls, abandoned prison grounds and neglected fields are being transformed into vibrant vegetable gardens by the calloused hands of inmates.

Although prison gardens essentially dried up in the 1970s, the concept has again taken root with a growing emphasis to nurture inmate rehabilitation. In correctional facilities all across the United States, from Texas to California to New York and points in between, inmates are working the land … and the land is working on them.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/prison-gardens-are-cultivating-seeds-of-change-143557/