Growing Food and Futures in Rhode Island Prisons

Learn about Garden Time, a unique organization that provides prison-based educational programs that teach incarcerated men and women how to cultivate gardens and grow food for their own economic and personal well-being, integrating job readiness skills and supports for reentry.

Additionally, they provide community-based green industry job training for formerly incarcerated men and women. Their programs foster education, inspiration, and empowerment, and help trainees translate new skills into opportunities that enable their successful and permanent reentry into society.

Kate Lacouture and Aloysius Weah will talk about Garden Time's in-prison and community based programs.

Kate Lacouture, co-founder & Executive Director of Garden Time, has been gardening with incarcerated men and women for 12 years. She is a landscape architect and gardener based in Providence.

Aloysius Weah was born in Liberia, moved to Holland during the Liberian war and came to the United States at the age of 13. He made some horrible mistakes and was incarcerated at the Rhode Island ACI where he participated in the Garden Time program. Since being released in October 2019, he got married, works as a landscaper and now works for Garden Time. His passion is landscaping which he finds very peaceful and relaxing. He also enjoys spending time with his family.