By VIVIANE GILBERT STEIN of the East Oregonian
PENDLETON - Behind the stone walls of Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, a green oasis of peace is growing.
"Once you come in here, you're in a different world," said Michael Fields, a Blue Mountain Community College instructor who works with inmates at the newly-renovated greenhouse. "The institution is out there, not in here."
"In here" is a quiet, peaceful environment, full of tiny living plants. Aisles of waist-high tables filled with pea gravel line the 30-by-150-foot structure, warm and cozy despite a chilly November wind outside.
Leafy tomatoes, arranged in carefully labeled pots according to soil type, stretch their stems to the sun.
Smaller sprouts promise salsa peppers, bell peppers and cucumbers, broccoli and cabbage. Garbanzo beans tower over shorter lettuce plants. A batch of strawberry plants are arranged against another wall.
"We brought them in from outside," explained Fields. "They weren't doing so well out there."
Past the strawberries is a miscellaneous grouping of small pots - projects of the dozen inmates who work at the greenhouse. An orange seed, brought over from the mess hall, is being nurtured with high hopes. So is a pot marked "cantaloupe," and a few straggly cannas, rescued from an outside flower bed.
"We're definitely going to fill the place up and provide a lot of food stuff for the institution," Fields promised. "I look for it to be a veritable jungle."
The vegetables will supplement the institution's menu, saving taxpayer dollars while providing work training and education for inmates, improving their chances of getting a job on the outside.
And there's more.
"In addition to a training and a work program, it's also a therapeutic program," explained Phillipe Magloire, director of the education program at EOCI.
"Very much so," agreed Claudia Fischer-Rodriguez, coordinator of COPE (Challenge Of Personal Experience), a mental health program that provides separate housing and treatment programs for inmates with moderate psychological disorders. "It's a very relaxed and low-stress environment. People work well together."
The chance to watch something grow and the subsequent boon to one's self-image - "To me, that's the thrust of the whole program," said Larry Coppock, a workforce development specialist from BMCC.
The inmates seem to agree.
"Personally, when I come in here, I can lose the prison environment," said inmate Marvin Ballow.
As for the work, "it's great," he said. "For inmates especially, because there isn't a whole lot to do, and what there is to do isn't much. And also it's different. There's a lot to learn. I might be 40 years old but I had never gardened before. You can always learn."
Other inmates, busy planting bean seeds, agreed.
"I like it a lot," said inmate Denny Doyle. "I find a lot of inner peace, being in here with all the guys working in here," Doyle said, gesturing at a fellow inmate who was helping him fill a bean pot. "It's a lot of fun."
The experience is also about work skills, inmate Dennis Howes pointed out.
"So when we leave here, we'll have a subject we know how to do," he explained.
"It's pretty peaceful in here," Howes added. "For some of us who have a lot of time to do, it's a good place to do it in."
About a year ago, inmate crews started cleaning up the beat-up old greenhouse, which went unused when the Department of Corrections took over the old state hospital grounds. Over the years, its remaining glass panes were favorite targets for home-run hitters in softball games on a nearby exercise yard.
The "major renovation" took almost eight months to complete, Magloire recalled. "It was heavy-duty work."
Inmates not only rebuilt the "entirely gutted" greenhouse, they helped design it. Shade cloths that roll down to block the glaring summer sun were designed and installed by the inmates. By the end of September, the greenhouse was officially up and growing.
The greenhouse is a COPE project. Inmates in the program face mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, hallucinations and bipolar disorder, issues they faced either before or after being incarcerated.
Work in the greenhouse can "help inmates reduce those symptoms as well as help them adjust to being incarcerated," which means they will eventually move to a housing unit with less support, explained Fischer-Rodriguez.
The greenhouse is a "low-stress environment that seems to be a good fit," she said.
Many inmates in the program have a poor work history, so the greenhouse offers a place for them to learn valuable job skills as well as how to interact with others in a workplace setting. "We want to give them an opportunity in which they can be successful," she said.
Horticulture is a good bet: It's one of the fastest growing agricultural programs in Oregon. And, Magloire pointed out, "These are viable jobs for former inmates. These are jobs they can get."
In the meantime, they'll help brighten EOCI's menu.
"The food services people have told us they'll take anything we can give 'em," Magloire said.
"I'm looking for a blend of things so the guys are introduced to as many things as possible," said Coppock. For example, inmates are growing dwarf tomatoes, a variety that wouldn't be seen in a commercial greenhouse but could be grown in a living room.
Future projects could include native species grown for the Department of Forestry, and perhaps flowering stock to beautify the institution. Fields, an amateur bonsai grower, might introduce inmates to growing the tiny trees someday.
"But for now, our main goal is to get things started and save taxpayer dollars by doing lettuce, peppers and tomatoes," Magloire said.
"There's nothing like fresh tomatoes and lettuce."