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| Inmates help beautify state parks |
| By pjstar.com - LESLIE RENKEN |
| Published: 09/19/2011 |
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CANTON IL -- In mid-August, 5,000 native wildflowers and grasses were growing in one-gallon pots behind the Illinois River Correctional Center in Canton. A small group of inmates in the horticulture vocational training program sat on low stools in the sunny courtyard carefully removing dead foliage from around each plant. "People don't realize how many hours they put into tending these plants," said horticulture instructor Vickie Herman. Started from 2-inch-wide plugs in the facility's greenhouse while snow was still falling outside, some of this year's crop of wildflowers was recently planted near Toulon while the rest will be used to enhance the prairie in Jubilee College State Park and various sites in the northwest corner of the state in Illinois Department of Transportation's District 2. IRCC is one of four prisons participating in the statewide program. Since 2005, thousands of plants grown by inmates have been planted around Illinois on roadsides, in rest areas and in state parks through the program, said IDOT roadside maintenance manager Craig Mitckes. IDOT, the Illinois Department of Corrections and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources are involved in the effort, which grew out of a program started by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his wife, Patty, during his first term after the couple saw wildflowers growing along a roadside in Texas while attending a conference there. It was originally called The First Lady's Wildflowers Program, later re-named Beautify Illinois, and currently has no name at all. It creates such positive benefits for all three state agencies involved that it has just quietly continued from year to year. "How many times have you seen different state government agencies all work together like this?" said Tom Zaborac, associate dean at Illinois River Correctional Center. To Zaborac, the benefits are quite clear. "These guys have taken so much out of the community, from the courts to the jail time and the cost of all that," he said. "And they feel good about being able to give back - it builds their self-esteem back up. This is a way of putting something back into our community." As with all the vocational training available at the correctional center, the horticulture program offers inmates a chance at a different kind of life when they get out. "Education is a deterrent to recidivism," Zaborac said. "When a guy has been in prison a couple times, if he's got a family on the outside and he's tired of playing the gang-banging games, education gives him a chance to stay out." Vickie Herman has been in charge of the horticulture program at Illinois River Correctional Center for three years. She wears a little necklace that says "nana," a gift from her grandchildren, and admits to a maternal attitude toward her students. "When they are out in other parts of the facility, they act one way, but when they come in here, you get to see another part of them," said Herman. "When they get that seed or plug all the way to maturity, they see that they did something. In their lives on the outside, many of them have never gotten to complete anything." Many inmates come to IRCC with dependency problems, Herman said. The work in the horticulture program, which is often physically strenuous, can be therapeutic. Read More. |
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