Iowa City gardener grows bumper crop of life skills with ‘Handcuffs to Hand Plows’

As the sun starts to warm the crisp morning air, Scott Koepke is down on his knees in the garden, coaxing three 16-year-olds to join him on an expedition.

'I love potato digging,” Koepke, education director with Grow: Johnson County - a hunger relief farm in Iowa City - tells the teens at the Linn County Juvenile Detention Center. 'It's like archaeology. You keep digging and discover more and more.”

One boy takes the garden trowel Koepke offers. The other two quickly take a seat on a bench out of the sun.

'C'mon, you guys are my Tater Tots,” says Koepke, who is full of gardening puns. 'See, there's a bunch (of potatoes) there. Is that it?”

'I think there's more,” the teen says as he digs in a different area.

'Keep going,” Koepke almost yells. 'Soil plus potatoes equals french fries!”

Koepke, known as 'Mr. Soil,” gets the other boys out of the shade to water the garden beds, which are full of cherry tomatoes, cantaloupe, sunflowers, basil and peppers.

'Some don't always participate, but I'm going to make it my goal to get through to them,” Koepke says as the teens go inside for lunch on that day last month. 'My heart is with at-risk kids.” 

LEARNING LIFE SKILLS THROUGH GARDENING

Koepke, 55, started his 'Handcuffs to Hand Plows” outreach at the detention center in Cedar Rapids and at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville - a prison - two years ago to teach life skills through gardening, which he says 'heals people.”

His life skills classes focus on balance, patience, respect, resilience, nurturance, healthy choices, trust, humility and gratitude.

Koepke said many of the teens at the detention center never have plucked a tomato off the vine and eaten it, gotten their hands dirty digging out a potato or consumed fresh vegetables from a garden.

Prison officials asked Koepke to do the outreach program, which he has conducted at area high schools for years. Before that, he hadn't considered work in correctional institutions. But he said he believes in second chances.

'I started listening to people's stories and realized food insecurity is part of all of this,” Koepke said. 'I could have wound up locked up and being hungry if I had chosen a different path.”

Dawn Schott, director of Linn County Juvenile Detention Center, said the youths have been excited about planting the garden and nurturing it, as well as having fresh vegetables for meals.

'Scott does an incredible job with them,” Schott said. 'The kids have really taken ownership of the garden.”

One of the boys who had behavior problems was asking to water the garden, and one of the girls was excited to have fresh flowers for the dining tables, Schott said.

The center has a high turnover because most of the juveniles are there for a short time. But about 60 percent return, so many of the youth who helped plant the garden in the spring are back there to pick the ripened produce.

'We don't have the kids for an extended period of time to do treatment or have the funding for that, but if we can do something like this to teach life skills and encourage positive activities, why not?” Schott said.

PRISON PROGRAM FOCUSES ON JOBS

Koepke said his gardening program at the prison in Coralville is more focused on vocational skills inmates can use when released.

Koepke is willing to be a reference for the inmates working on the farm and encourages them to come to the hunger relief farm in Iowa City, where they can have their own plot after serving their time.

Jim McKinney, warden of the Iowa Medical and Classification Center, said 'inmates are as different as those in society,” so the facility is fortunate to have different programs to help the inmates when they return to their communities.

'There's only so much staff can do, especially with budget cuts, so we rely on volunteers like Scott to provide more options,” McKinney said. 'They learn and become more responsible. It helps the culture and atmosphere in here to get them involved and prepared for leaving some day.”

Seven inmates work full-time on the 5-acre garden/farm behind the prison. The garden has been there for years, and its produce is used in the prison kitchen. Koepke teaches gardening, soil science, composting, local foods economics and policy and life skills through Kirkwood Community College that inmates can take for college credit. He also give advice and works with the inmates at the farm.

The farm produces 25,000 pounds of food per acre, or more than 100,000 pounds annually, Koepke noted. The garden produces 12 to 15 vegetables and fruits.

A 'Job Club” plot of land, separate from the 5-acre garden, is run by one of the inmates. That produce is sold to the inmates. The surplus goes to Koepke, who donates it to the North Liberty food pantry.

INMATEs find ‘whole other world'

Marshall MacTaggert, 31, serving time for second-degree sexual abuse, plans and tends to the 3,000-square-foot club garden. He wanted to give the men healthy alternatives to junk food. The produce sells fairly quickly, he said.

Last week, inmates who regularly work at the garden were pulling up plastic mulch and picking acorn squash.

Dallas Miller, 28, serving time for burglary and assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, said he plots out the 5 acres each year and helps Ben Schwenker, the prison's correctional trades leader, oversee the day-to-day operations, order seed and conduct inventory. He grew up on a dairy farm but hadn't done vegetable farming before being incarcerated.

'I took Scott's classes, and I'm planning to take a master gardening class through (Iowa State University) Extension this year,” Miller said.

Keith Noe, 46, convicted of third-degree sex abuse and drug counts, said he was 'proud” of the gardening work they do. 'This is a great learning environment, and Scott doesn't talk down to us. He works with us.”

'It's an escape from prison,” Mike Fleming, 47, convicted on drug and theft counts, jokingly said. 'It's a whole different world out here. We're doing something good. I really want to better myself - gain some knowledge. I have an anger management thing, and this helps.”

Two other inmates said they wanted to do something positive, as opposed to 'sitting inside and being angry” or getting caught up in more trouble. The men usually work about five or six hours a day outside.

All of the nine state prisons have a garden and make an effort to donate produce to local food pantries, Cord Overton, Iowa Department of Corrections director of communications, said. Each offers similar gardening programs with 'treatment and rehabilitative value” for the offenders.

GARDENING SHOWN TO MAKE POSITIVE CHANGE

Koepke said several research studies show prison gardening programs reduce recidivism, or the return to prison.

The gardening programs in New York, Ohio and San Francisco, which started 'green prison” programs as far back as the 1990s, teach self-worth, responsibility, vocational skills and also improve mental and physical health, according to articles in Psychology Today, National Public Radio and the Washington Post. The community also benefits because many of these gardens provide food to food pantries, as well as supplying prison food, and also teaches job skills to offenders.

A 2015 study in Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, a peer-reviewed journal, showed recidivism rates at the Rikers Island prison in New York City, which has one of the largest garden programs, had decreased 10 percent for graduates of the green prison program.

Koepke said the University of Iowa Colleges of Public Health, Social Work and Education are interested in partnering with him to define, measure and interpret the effectiveness of his program for those who are incarcerated and after their release.

Koepke also was interviewed last month by Country Gardens, which is owned by Better Homes and Gardens, about his gardening program at the juvenile detention center. Koepke and Schott believe it is the only juvenile center in the state to have a garden and outreach program like Koepke's.

'I believe you have to explore a door that opens,” Koepke said. 'I've learned from them as much as they learned from me. I'm going to do whatever I can to provide the garden bridge of healing.”

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