On October 7, a very special donation of produce was delivered to Earl Boyles Community Garden. You may remember when vandals struck at the garden in early August, destroying many of the plots, breaking tools, and flooding the garden itself. The Portland community, led by Parks Commissioner Nick Fish, rose up with donations of produce and tools for the gardeners affected by the vandals, and many lent their time, as well, to later help rebuild the garden.

But another group who read about the vandalism wanted to help, too. Members of the New Horizons Club, inmates serving life sentences at the Oregon State Correctional Institution, heard about the damage to the garden and the loss of the produce those families depended upon.

The New Horizons Club members elected to donate the produce from their own garden at the penitentiary to those Earl Boyles gardeners whose plots were destroyed by the vandalism.

Here is a list of the fresh food they donated:

* 380 lbs of regular tomatoes
* 40 lbs of cherry tomatoes
* 100 lbs of zucchini squash
* 35 lbs of miscellaneous squash
* 160 lbs of cantaloupe
* 20 lbs of pumpkins
* 20 lbs of cucumbers
* 40 lbs of red leaf lettuce
* 10 lbs of yellow wax beans
* 65 lbs of bell peppers
* 40 lbs of jalapenos
* 25 lbs of cabbage
* 600 lbs of potatoes

That comes to 1,515 pounds of produce grown by the New Horizons Club inmates themselves in the garden at the OSCI yard.

The club members were excited to be a part of giving to the community in a positive way. And, considering that this would normally be food they grow in order to supplement all inmates’ meals at OSCI with fresh vegetables, it is a big donation from the heart.

Submitted by: Robi Potter, PP&R Property & Acquisitions