[2025-10-30 Thu 05:10]
UA prison garden program pauses after federal grant ends
Down to Earth Dads operated out of the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson, teaching participants gardening and parenting skills and drawing parallels between nurturing plants and raising children.
I’ve seen the garden at work. It was lovely. Now the grant money to keep it going has run out.
The program was funded by an Improving Reentry grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. But with that funding now exhausted, the program’s final class took place earlier this month.
Impressive that it was growing at all, since around here the dirt is rocks.
Burruel recalled the program’s impact on one former participant, “Cheech.”
“He had spent more than half his life in prison,” she said. “But he really got into the program. He even came up with a new way to irrigate the garden, inspired by Aztec canals. It used less water but produced more crops, and we still use it today.”
The restrictive budget from on high has big headline-making impact, but there are also sad little ripple effects all over.