SPP Programing Functionality
Environmental Programs
Roots of Success: Here we have a 50 hour curriculum where students learn about vital environmental topics. As of today 1,359 volunteers have graduated from this program and have learned how to use natural resources in the best way possible!
Diversity in Roots of Success Graduates
Visual by Nic Higgins
Compared to the general population, there is increased diversity in these programs as Whites make up 65% of graduates compared to 70% of the population, 24% of Black and Brown graduates compared to 18% of the population, and about 11% of Hispanic graduates compared to 5% of the general population.
Community College Courses: In collaboration with Washington State community colleges, volunteers have the ability to take horticultural classes and gain access to rigorous, hands-on gardening work!
Education
Transformative Education Behind Bars: TEBB is a non-profit organization made up of university educators and other non-profit orgs. partnered with the SPP that support higher education to incarcerated individuals.
Insight Garden Program: IGP is another non-profit that has provided gardens to San Quentin prisons for over a decade. They’ve partnered with the SPP in order to bring their greatest attraction, “inner and outer garden skills” to correctional facilities.
Re-Entry Programs
One of the most important aspects of this effort is reducing the amount of returning offenders and breaking the stigma of “once a criminal, always a criminal.”
Civil Survival: Another non-profit partnered with SPP. They provide legal education to incarcerated individuals. Basic legal information, civic engagement, and life-skills education programs are provided by this group.
The Freedom Project: “a volunteer-run non-profit that offers programs inside several WA prisons, and to recently released individuals. Since 2011, more than 320 volunteers have facilitated nonviolent communication, mindfulness, an equity classes to thousands of incarcerated individuals.” – SPP.org
