Reaping the Harvest at the Rhode Island Training School

On a clear Thursday morning in July, Mariana stands by the fence brushing the goats. 

Six Nigerian dwarf goats gather around her, their gangly legs jostling for position. They poke their noses through the fence, pink tongues on the hunt for their favorite treat, animal crackers. The smallest — a silver-colored female — nudges her way through.

“Hi, Star. I don’t have no food,” Mariana says, offering the goat a scratch. 

“She’s timid,” she explains as Star trots off to join the others at a feeding trough. “I think she’s intimidated because she’s the only girl. But she gets most of the attention.”

At 9:30 a.m., the day is shaping up to be a hot one, the type when most teenagers her age would be at the beach, or else hiding in the air-conditioned confines of a bedroom, phone in hand. Instead, Mariana — whose name has been changed to protect her identity — is here in gardening boots and sweatpants, her hair gathered on top of her head in a messy bun. Outside the goat enclosure, three other teenagers work in the surrounding garden, pulling up weeds and mowing the strips of grass between the vegetable beds.

If not for the oversized fence surrounding the property, the area just off Route 37 in Cranston could be mistaken for an exceptionally successful community garden. Fifty-foot vegetable beds overflow with squash, broccoli, tomatoes and other summer produce, and the sounds of crowing roosters and quacking ducks mingle with the bleats of happy goats. Even the gardeners seem content, gathering peppers or working the soil with a calm that suggests long practice.

In fact, all of the gardeners are students, participating in the Urban Garden Project as part of their detention at the Rhode Island Training School. Like many of the programs designed for young people involved with the justice system, the garden serves the dual purpose of offering an outlet while also providing vocational training and a potential path forward after incarceration. Many of these students will go on to participate in programs designed to ease their reentry into society — Tides Family Services and Farm Fresh Rhode Island are among the organizations in the state which offer programs that guide youth through this critical juncture. But here, within the walls of the Training School, the community comes to the students, delivering the promise of new life in the form of pink noses and gently sprouting blooms.

“My motto is, ‘You’re one day closer to going home,’” says Larome Myrick, executive director of the Division of Youth Development for the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families. “We start reentry at day one.”

 

The Urban Garden Project is a relative newcomer to the Rhode Island Training School. Started in 2017 as a handful of vegetable beds, the project has grown with financial support from the Rhode Island Foundation to cover a wide swath of the facility’s grounds. Students participate as part of the school’s culinary or landscape design programs or as a diversion from the routine of living in a juvenile facility. Administrators also speak to its use as an incentive for students who are struggling behaviorally.

“It really dates back to our origins,” says John Scott, the school’s senior community development training specialist and one of the administrators behind the garden. “When the Training School was first located at Sockanosset, it was largely agricultural. They grew and raised everything they ate. They made their own shoes. They did a lot of printing for the state of Rhode Island. So we wanted to pay homage to our history and really use it as a teaching opportunity for kids to learn where their food comes from and also to give the kids an outdoor classroom. Learning about photosynthesis in a textbook inside of a class inside of a juvenile facility is one thing, but to actually go outside and touch the plants and learn about the science behind it, we saw that as an interesting opportunity.”

Between 1881 and approximately 1960, the sprawling state property sometimes referred to as the Howard Complex was home to the Sockanosset School for Boys, a detention facility where wayward boys from around the state were sent to be “reformed.” A separate facility, the Oaklawn School for Girls, was also located on the property. Photographs from the state archives show children from both facilities cooking, working in a machine shop and tending gardens on the schools’ lawns.

Today’s garden, though it still grows food, provides sustenance of a different type. According to Heather Dos Santos, principal and special education director at the Training School, the garden is part of a holistic approach to meet the students’ social, emotional and academic needs. Students begin by raising plants from seeds before moving them to a greenhouse to mature. Outdoors, they participate as part of an expanded learning opportunity or postsecondary experience, practicing skills that might come in handy after their release.

“The most challenging part is not having at least an expected or more definitive timeline for how long they’ll be with us,” she says. “At times, if you have a youth who is sentenced, then you have a pretty good idea of how long they’ll be with you. You have just about as many youth for whom you really don’t know how much time you have.”

Katie Hyland, a former food scientist who previously managed product development for major food brands, teaches the school’s landscape design and culinary programs, including overseeing the garden. In addition to her experience in food research and development, Hyland has a passion for gardening and trained as a University of Rhode Island Master Gardener. In 2021, she decided to leave the world of food manufacturing behind and took a position as the school’s landscaping instructor, later taking on the culinary role.

“Being able to actually work with your hands and to think through a project — those are skills that translate outside of just landscaping. I thought that was something not everybody has the opportunity to do, and I felt it was something I could bring to the table,” she says.

“We wanted to pay homage to our history and really use it as a teaching opportunity for kids to learn where their food comes from and also to give the kids an outdoor classroom.” —John Scott, Senior community development training specialist at the R.I. training school

Back at the garden, Mariana is giving me a lesson on goats. She and other female students helped bottle feed them when they arrived, raising them from kids. Goats, she assures me, can eat anything. As if to demonstrate, one bites the leg of my pants, while another tries to steal my notebook over the fence.

For Mariana, gardening is more than just a hobby. “I like it,” she tells me. “It’s like therapy, basically. A lot of kids here have a lot of things on their mind, being in here. Coming out, it takes your mind off things.”

While the garden is an abrupt departure from city life for some students, others are familiar with agricultural life — at times, more than their instructors. Back in Puerto Rico, one student tells me, his grandparents own a farm. “When Fridays come up, I’m excited just to come out and mow the grass,” he says, adding he’d like to own his own business in construction or real estate after obtaining his GED. Mariana is from the Dominican Republic, where, she explains, “it’s normal to have ten chickens in your backyard running around.” She’d like to work in cosmetology, but dreams of having a garden in her backyard. On the far side of the vegetable beds, she brushes her fingers against a tomato plant that stands taller than the rest.

“You tie it to the pole so it’ll grow straight. It will have support,” she says, demonstrating how Hyland taught her to secure the stalk to its cage. “I’m very proud. This is my first one I started, and I knew it was going to be good.”

The Training School has not collected formal data on its Urban Garden Project, but research points to the benefits of gardening for youth in juvenile corrections settings. A 2010 study published in the Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture found that gardening promoted a positive self-image and helped with emotional and behavioral management for youth at a juvenile rehabilitation center in southwestern Ohio. The teenagers, ages thirteen to seventeen, generally reported improved relationships with staff and a calming effect after participating in the garden. Behavioral violations also declined among participants during their work. In addition, youth who participated had the chance to leave the facility and deliver produce directly to food pantries and soup kitchens, an experience researchers said developed empathy and encouraged interest among participants in serving their community.

According to Scott, Training School staff have seen similar success using the garden as a behavioral intervention for students struggling with the facility’s routine. In some cases, he says, staff members have singled out students to participate in special projects such as building a goat barn or helping to plant garlic. In addition to instilling pride in the work, students can use garden tasks to complete court-mandated community service hours.

“It’s very therapeutic to them to come and work with the animals,” Scott says. “We’ve seen a lot of success with kids who are struggling behaviorally inside the main building where we use the outside to help stabilize them, get them on track and give them something to focus on.”

In 2018, they added chickens, a flock that’s now grown to include twenty-seven hens, three roosters and seven ducks. As we round a corner of the building toward the coop, a rooster lets out a loud crow, and small claws scatter across the enclosure. Scott points out the source of the noise: a black-colored bird with white feathers that seem to explode out the top of its head.

“Some of the kids call him Don King. I call him Tony Bennett,” he says.

The chickens approach cautiously, wary of the stranger in their midst. Like the goats, they’ve assumed a role somewhere between pet and livestock, raised from chicks in the classroom before they’re acclimated to the larger flock. Staff and students harvest about a dozen-and-a-half eggs daily, not counting recent hatchlings who have not yet started laying. Eggs are sold to staff members in exchange for donations to the garden program or left out for families to take during their visits with students. Sometimes, students cook with them during their culinary classes, completing the food cycle from barnyard to plate.

Above us, the walls of the Training School flank the coop on three sides. The location affords clear views of the chickens from several rooms and hallways, including an employee area known as the “decompression zone.” In a field marked by chronic staff shortages and recruitment challenges, Scott says, the garden sets the Training School apart and lightens the load of an otherwise heavy job. For students, the impact can be even more profound. He recalls the case of one young man who was drawn to a chicken with a birth defect and cared for it until it was the most sociable bird in the flock.

“They can take their mask off. They don’t have to be that kid from the street when they come out here. They don’t have to maintain their reputation when they’re in [the garden]. When you’re inside the mod, there’s a certain bravado,” he says, referring to the living module where students spend most of their time.

“Out here, they become children. And that’s important.”

 

The Rhode Island Training School was not always known for its holistic approach to juvenile rehabilitation. In 2017, the Department of Children, Youth and Families initiated a review after several staff members and two juveniles were injured in a violent altercation between students and staff. The resulting report found an outdated security system, staffing shortage and lack of programming for incarcerated youth. In particular, the report found that opportunities for vocational training were limited, despite students expressing interest in job training as part of their rehabilitation. The head of the Training School resigned, and Myrick was appointed head of the facility in 2018.

Around the same time, the state resolved a forty-six-year-old lawsuit alleging the facility lacked adequate physical and mental health care, academic programs, sufficient staffing and other necessary conditions. After a group of inmates filed the lawsuit in 1971, the school entered a federal consent decree that mandated a long list of court-ordered reforms, including the building of a new facility completed in 2009.

According to staff, the field of juvenile corrections has seen a significant shift in recent decades. Jason Zuena, the Training School’s program service officer and an employee for twenty-four years, says when he first started out, staff members were discouraged from talking to or establishing a relationship with youth. “The focus is definitely different,” he says. “It’s much more about building the community within and outside of this building.”

The number of youth in that community has also shifted. According to a June 2023 report by Rhode Island Kids Count, the total number of youth held at the Training School at any point during the year declined sharply from 1,084 in 2008 to 180 in 2022. This was due in part to legislation passed by the Rhode Island General Assembly in July 2008 that established a cap of 148 boys and twelve girls at the Training School on any given day.

Instead, many youth are diverted into community programs, sometimes bypassing the juvenile justice system entirely. According to the report, 51 percent of all cases referred to the Family Court Juvenile Services intake department in 2022 were diverted instead of proceeding to a formal court hearing. One pathway through which youth can avoid involvement in the formal court system is through a juvenile hearing board, a community-based option that typically requires the referral of a police officer. According to Rhode Island for Community and Justice, a group that works with communities to establish and maintain juvenile hearing boards, twenty-eight of Rhode Island’s thirty-nine cities and towns have active boards. Jessica Vega, a senior policy analyst with Rhode Island Kids Count and president of the Central Falls Juvenile Hearing Board, says the goal of the boards is to take a more holistic approach to juvenile justice and connect kids with appropriate resources in the community. A majority of the cases that come before the Central Falls board, she says, are a result of fighting in schools.

“We see youth from ages eleven to seventeen. Prior to the pandemic, a lot of the youth were coming from the high school. Now, post-pandemic, we’re seeing them come a lot younger. A lot of younger kids, eleven to thirteen, [are] getting arrested at school,” she says.

The board partners with the Department of Children, Youth and Families to fund driver’s education and other opportunities and connect youth with community organizations. One of these organizations is Mentor Rhode Island, which offers a program that aims to empower juvenile justice system-involved youth and improve racial equity in the system by matching them with positive adult mentors. 

“It’s a complete 360. We had two young people who participated, and they’re like different kids,” Vega says. “They love the experience. Mentor RI connects them to community service and different activities.”

For youth who go through a formal court process, community-based programs often help develop job skills and create positive connections following their involvement with the justice system. In 2010, Farm Fresh Rhode Island launched the Harvest Kitchen, a kitchen-based vocational program that offers culinary training while using up excess produce from local farms. Originally restricted to youth who had recently exited the Training School, the program is now open to any sixteen- to nineteen-year-old involved with DCYF.

“It’s twofold,” says Sean Kontos, Harvest Kitchen program director. “We’re working with at-risk youth trying to support them and also working with farmers to purchase their excess produce.”

Young people, often referred by a social worker or DCYF, attend a fifteen-week paid training program at Farm Fresh’s downtown Pawtucket location, where they create value-added products such as pickles and applesauce and prepare breakfast and lunch in a customer-facing cafe. Following the training period, students are placed in a five-week supported internship at a local restaurant. While the program has occasionally helped launch careers in food service, Kontos notes the emphasis on soft skills applicable to any career.

“Culinary is the vessel that it’s built around, but the meat of what we do is to get them ready for the workforce, period,” he says.

According to Scott, Harvest Kitchen fulfills many of the same goals as the Urban Garden Project, teaching skills that otherwise wouldn’t be learned in a classroom setting. Many students at the Training School, he says, are leading lives that put them at risk. A program like Harvest Kitchen becomes an opportunity to escape the realities of daily life and consider a different path.

“I can teach kids about chickens all day long, but they’re leaving in four months. It’s so much more important that they make that connection and [find] passion in the community,” he says.

Prior to the pandemic, youth detained at the Training School could earn privileges to leave the facility for short periods to visit family, work or pursue educational opportunities as part of a community pass program. As of October, the program had not been reinstated after it was suspended due to the risks associated with COVID-19, but Training School administrators say they hope to bring it back. Scott envisions allowing participants in the urban garden to sell their produce at local farmers markets, or even work in a farm setting in the community. More than vocational skills, such opportunities teach students the life skills necessary to achieve success following their reentry into society.

“If you don’t connect all of the little dots, the soft skills that are required to be successful at their job, you might be doing a disservice just putting a kid into an employment opportunity because you’re giving the kid an opportunity for a potential failure,” he says. “They always talk about the school-to-prison pipeline. Our pipeline should be here to the community.”

“People don’t realize there’s an ugly veil, a curtain that we can’t see through all the time, but as caseworkers, we get a glimpse. What we find out is poor people go through this scenario a lot because they can’t be home to watch the kid because ‘We’ll be homeless if we don’t get to work.’” —Travis Wiggins, Youth Transition Center community outreach liason for tides family services

 

In a run-down South Providence mill now home to a warren of artist studios and small businesses, two teenagers are laying down a beat. Bathed in the purple light of a sound booth, they spit lyrics into a microphone, roughing up their voices to sound huskier than their young years. The rapid-fire lines are barely audible over the heavy bass track, but an occasional word breaks through, revealing casual references to street violence. The profanity-laced lyrics seem incongruous coming from the students in their neat glasses and slide-on shoes.

They fall silent, and Kenny Mercado, owner of the Boiler Room recording studio, offers to replay the track.

“You want me to run it back?” he asks.

On the couch, Travis Wiggins, a social worker with Tides Family Services, listens with a practiced ear.

“I remember when I was young, I thought I had to rap cool,” he says.

Wiggins, a community outreach liaison for the social services agency’s Youth Transition Center, is well-known to the youth who filter in and out of the state’s juvenile justice system. In his current role, he works with teenagers recently released from the Training School or otherwise involved with the justice system, checking up on their progress and taking them out in the community, anywhere from the movies to the recording studio to working out at the gym. The outings serve as both a bonding experience and an incentive to keep them engaged, ensuring they fulfill the requirements of their probation.

In addition to his twenty-four years at Tides, he’s also a rapper who performs under the stage name “An Artist Named Flizz” and a South Providence native. Many of his friends growing up, he says, later ended up dead or in jail. He credits the fact he lived in a two-parent household — his father, a no-nonsense military veteran, worked at Electric Boat, and his mother was a nurse — with keeping him on the right path. For the kids he works with, that’s rarely the case.

“People don’t realize there’s an ugly veil, a curtain that we can’t see through all the time, but as caseworkers, we get a glimpse,” he says. “What we find out is poor people go through this scenario a lot because they can’t be home to watch the kid because ‘We’ll be homeless if we don’t get to work.’”

Like Scott and Harvest Kitchen’s Kontos, Wiggins encourages teenagers to explore their passions and tap into skills that might help access a career. He’s also realistic about his expectations.

“Earlier, I set him up for a job interview at AS220, and he made it there,” he says, referring to the older of the two boys now imitating a machine gun in the sound booth. “I know that sounds like whoop-de-doo, but in this industry, that’s big.”

While feuds used to start and end on the street, today’s technology provides ample opportunities for getting in trouble. Wiggins says it’s common for a “keyboard tough guy” blowing off steam to start an online altercation he’s not prepared to deal with in real life. With almost everything making it to social media these days, I wonder who will be listening when the boys post their newly recorded track. Does Wiggins worry they’ll provoke trouble with their lyrics?

“Their whole lives are a worry for me,” he says. “I never censor them. But sometimes, we have to have that conversation — like, ‘What else you got?’

“A lot of these kids are in danger whether they rap or not,” he adds. “They’ve been shot at.”

He also works with students inside the Rhode Island Training School, ensuring many of his clients already know his name before their release. In the Training School, he says, students are exposed to activities they wouldn’t normally have access to, like gardening or working with musicians or other professionals. In the Kids Count report, several youth who participated in a series of focus groups cited a lack of structured activities in the community as part of why they became involved with the justice system in the first place. One participant pointed out that most community resources — including the YMCA and Boys & Girls Club — cost money, while others wanted more opportunities for job training and building career skills. Caseworkers likewise expressed frustration with a lack of prevention opportunities for youth.

“These diversion programs are so beneficial. They’re beneficial for boosting confidence and self-esteem and showing kids you have all these other opportunities,” says Kelsey Bala, the Kids Count policy analyst who authored the report. “I think [we should be] putting the focus more on primary prevention instead of that tertiary level of, ‘You have to be system-involved for us to offer this to you.’ I don’t think that’s sustainable for too long.”

Sean Swepson, a hospitality professional and former Training School student who now advocates for juvenile justice reform, echoes similar concerns. “After thirteen, programming kind of goes by the wayside for youth. If you don’t have money, there’s not a whole lot you can do,” he says.

He’s also working with Training School administrators to create a speaker series where students can hear from real-life role models from the outside. According to Training School staff, maintaining a community connection outside the school is essential for setting students up for success after their release.

“Most things a kid needs are under this roof. The only thing we don’t have under this roof is the community. We can’t bring the kid out to the community, but we can bring the community in here,” Myrick says.

 

After the bright July day outside, the Training School art room is cool and dark. A tangy scent emanates from the center of the room, where 1,520 heads of freshly harvested garlic are spread out on a table to dry. Students gather at the table’s edges, gently handling the garlic and sniffing the pungent air. 

“You’re telling me this is garlic? I’ve never seen garlic like this,” Mariana declares.

The garlic bed is the latest addition at the Urban Garden Project, grown within a newly electrified fence between the chickens and the goat pen. Though plans aren’t set, staff have been talking with Chapel Grille — located up the street in the former chapel of the Sockanosset School for Boys — about providing garlic to the restaurant, possibly laying the groundwork for a career training opportunity down the road. Scott has plans to expand the
garden by installing solar energy to power heated water sources and ensure the animals’ water remains drinkable in freezing temperatures.

“Solar energy and solar power is a growing field, so teaching kids about sustainable energy and learning about solar power, it might spark an interest and then they could pursue that through higher education,” he says.

Plus, the enclosure might have some newcomers soon.

“We would like to dive into a couple of alpacas,” he says.

Myrick, who grew up in urban Toledo, Ohio, shakes his head. “As long as I don’t have anything to do with it.”

Animal aversions aside, Myrick recognizes the opportunities the farm creates for students, as well as the benefits to staff. Every student will eventually exit the school, many of them to join programs run by Tides Family Services, Harvest Kitchen and other nonprofits. If they’re lucky, they’ll uncover passions and pursue potential career tracks along the way. But even for those who don’t, the garden is one small seed on a path to a different future.