Space to grow: Gardening program gives young adults with criminal pasts new opportunities

Green bean seeds sprinkle down from Joseph Rogers' hands into the dry soil in front of him.

It’s a sunny Friday afternoon in the Fountain Square Community Garden as “Step by Step” plays from his speaker. Rogers dances to the music, gloved hands in the air.

“When I play music it makes the plants grow faster,” he said.

Most Southeast Neighborhood Development (SEND) programs, a community development non-profit founded by the city's south and southeast residents, are focused on affordable housing, commercial renovation, economic and small business support and improving green and public spaces.

Their gardening program, started this year, works with young adults who have been formerly incarcerated or involved with the justice system to offer them employment opportunities while also cultivating community gardens.

The harvest from this garden, including watermelon, strawberries, broccoli and a variety of other fruits and vegetables go to Fountain View senior living apartments and the Elaine, a food pantry.

Bryant Washington and Devonte Lawson planted with Rogers this summer as part of the ReGrowth program.

South and southeast Indy residents wanted to improve food systems, said Alex Hughes, the Community Builder for SEND, which is how ReGrowth was born. ReGrowth participants worked five hours a day, five days a week, for $16 an hour.

“We shouldn’t have so many barriers around employment,” Hughes said. “But there are for that population.”

Criminal records often are a barrier to finding employment in the United States. A 2014 study showed that when applicants with identical resumes applied to the same job, the formerly incarcerated person was less likely to get an interview. In 2018, unemployment for formerly incarcerated people was 27%, higher than the unemployment rate of the general population historically, including during the Great Depression, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

The inaugural ReGrowth cohort this year had four participants, but Hughes hopes it expands in both number of participants and ages.

The program lasted six weeks.

While ReGrowth paid an hourly wage, participants also took a financial literacy class, cooking classes, learned how to plant and cultivate a garden, build a garden bed and had weekly lunches with potential employers.

“Food is so much more than planting things and maintaining gardens," Hughes said. "It’s community.”

The program attempted to connect the participants with professionals in fields that the participants were interested in, including tattoo artists and chefs, Hughes said.

"This program isn't just about creating future farmers, it's about food and wellness and kind of also what are you passionate about?” Hughes said.

Paving their way in the world

Washington has a passion for businesses. He wants to run a shoe business that focuses on selling large sizes because "big sizes run out." He also wants to run a transportation business that hauls cars to a car sales lots.

Washington, 19, heard about the ReGrowth program through RecycleForce, a nonprofit focused on the re-entry of people returning from incarceration and improving the environment through electronics recycling, according to its website.

His time in the criminal justice system as a minor makes him certain he won't be in trouble with the law anymore.

"I never want to experience that again," he said. "It awakened me."

Since then, Washington has had a lot of jobs. Mowing lawns, working at McDonald's and Foot Locker. ReGrowth was the first one that taught him about gardening. Now, he knows how to grow flowers and build a garden for someone, he said.

Washington also is interested in helping others, just like others have helped him. He said, eventually, he wants to help his mom run a shelter for women and children experiencing homelessness.

Lawson, 24, also heard about ReGrowth through RecycleForce.

He was recently released after serving time for his connection to an armed robbery as a teenager. It's the only time he's been in major trouble with the law and he hopes it's his last.

Still, sometimes he worries.

Lawson said he's seen other people struggle to stay out of prison and find employment after incarceration.

"Certain people, they're good people, but they'd be stuck in certain situations where you can't get out," he said.

Some of these situations, he said, include struggling with mental illness, becoming homeless or spending time with the wrong people.

Employers discriminate based on both background and race, which can make finding a job harder for people like him, Lawson said.

He wished more people would embrace and encourage others, including those who are formerly incarcerated, to do better.

ReGrowth has done exactly that, he said. The program has helped him become more punctual and taught him how to work with other people.

His favorite part of ReGrowth was growing food and learning how to harvest, Lawson said. He also enjoyed the classes they took through Cooking Matters, which teaches cooking and nutrition education.

Lawson dreams of eventually opening his own restaurant — though he hasn't yet decided what type of food he'll serve. But he has some time. First, he plans to go to IvyTech and get a degree in culinary arts.

"There's a lot of people who got out of prison recently, in the last decade, that changed their life all the way," Lawson said. "No matter what the situation was."

Finding a home

Before his sophomore year of high school, Rogers said he decided to stop going to school. He applied to Job Corps, a program administered by the United States Department of Labor that offers free education and vocational training to people ages 16 to 24.

Rogers got a diploma through Job Corps and returned home to Gary, Indiana. Upon returning, he was diagnosed with epilepsy. Rogers said he's been told before that epilepsy makes him a workplace hazard. For Rogers, ReGrowth isn't just a job, it's a stress reliever.

In 2018, Rogers moved to Indianapolis. The next year, right after his daughter was born, he lost his house and had to move into a homeless shelter. Then he lost his job during the pandemic.

Through RecycleForce, Rogers heard about ReGrowth and hopes the program is able to include more people going forward.

“This is a lovely thing that I want to see expand,” he said.

After gardening at Fountain Square, the Regrowth team is awaiting lead soil tests to come back before building garden beds in the Norwood neighborhood.

Across the street from the planned plot, Rogers and his girlfriend walk up freshly painted white stairs onto the porch of a grey house with blue shutters. Rogers hunches over, peering inside.

“This would be perfect for us,” he said.

The house was recently constructed by SEND's home ownership program, which uses federal grant funds to build homes for buyers who are at or below 80 percent of the average income level in the area.

He hopes to be able to buy one like it being built nearby.

When he gets his own home, whether it's the one in Norwood or not, he wants to use what he’s learned from ReGrowth to start his own garden.

Gardening is just like having kids, Rogers said. He has a three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son.

“It’s just me being a father,” Rogers said, motioning at the plants surrounding him. “This is like kids. You gotta nourish these plants. You gotta talk to them. Gotta keep them hydrated.”

As he skims through his phone, looking at dozens of photos and videos of the gardens they’ve been working on over the summer, Rogers marvels at how, in a matter of weeks, the seeds he planted had grown into pounds and pounds of vegetables and fruits.

“You drop it in the ground, you see it, a small little pebble become to being something like this,” he said, motioning at the garden around him.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis gardening program feeds neighborhood, gives opportunity