When six prisons closed near his home in rural Laurinburg, North Carolina, Noran Sanford didn’t want the spaces to remain dormant and unused. He launched GrowingChange in 2011, an organization dedicated to community development and reducing recidivism. The organization is based out of one of the former prisons.
After Sanford and some of his youth participants pitched his idea to the state, the Department of Public Safety donated the land to the organization. Other organizations, like the Kellogg Foundation and The Conservation Fund, have partnered with GrowingChange to help Sanford’s vision become a reality.
The program started with 12 ex-offenders who were unlucky enough to experience the ‘unholy trinity’ (as Sanford refers to it) – expelled from school, thrown out of their homes, and arrested. Sanford spent much of his career as a social worker with youth in the juvenile justice system and knew these young adults held immense potential.
Thinning mounds is our least favorite part of growing pumpkins. Hard to prioritize one vine but it must be done. #GrowingChange pic.twitter.com/OD7mpM847e
— GrowingChange (@FlipThePrison) August 25, 2017
At the old prison, they grow food for families in need. They’re currently repurposing other parts of the prison to become a community sports field, climbing walls, and aquaponic tanks. In what was once a site the community sought to avoid neighbors now congregate and spend time together.
Terrance Smith, who joined early on as part of his probation program, told Sierra Club: “This area is very rural, so we’re no strangers to dirt and tools. But we didn’t know a thing about sustainable agriculture. Being out here, working shoulder to shoulder with the other guys, we just fell in love with it.”
Smith started his own earthworm soil business called Super Dirt and plans on pursuing agriculture as his profession.
Some of the other participants have been working on a graphic novel series called Prison Flip Comics, personal stories about their experiences in and out of the juvenile system. They plan on distributing the books to incarcerated youth to serve as a reminder that the future has many positive possibilities.
So far, GrowingChange is immensely successful. The program has been 92% effective in preventing recidivism in its 18 participants. Currently, around 300 prisons are dormant in the US. Sanford plans on flipping 25 of them by 2025.
