HOULTON, Maine — When 30-year-old Abdul Mohamud is done with his 10-hour shift on a southern Aroostook organic farm, he and his fellow farm hands don’t hop into their cars and grab a bite to eat or cold drink on their way home.
Instead, they are driven back to the Aroostook County Jail in Houlton where they are serving out sentences for crimes ranging from drug trafficking to domestic abuse.
It’s all part of a joint program between the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Office and the nonprofit Friends of Aroostook, which annually donates thousands of pounds of fresh produce to food pantries and to the elderly.
Last year, the organization donated 230,000 pounds of food planted, tended and harvested with inmate labor, according to Dale Flewelling, founder of the nonprofit.
“There is no way we could do this at this level without the inmates’ help,” Flewelling said. “I believe everyone can give back to the community [and] we find these young men want to contribute.”
It’s hard work picking rocks, preparing fields, planting, weeding, cultivating and harvesting the land.
Days are long and summer in northern Maine means the black flies and deer flies are thick, but everyone of the inmates say they’d rather be outside on the farm than back in the jail staring at their cell walls.
“They offered me this program, and I jumped on it,” Mohamud said. “It makes the days go a lot faster.”
It’s not just the days that go faster.
According to Aroostook County Sheriff Darrell Crandall, inmates at the county jail who participate in sanctioned work activities like on the farm or in the jail itself, can earn one day off their sentence for every two days worked. About 90 inmates are housed at the Aroostook County Jail at any given time, according to Crandall. Some are held awaiting trial and others are serving out sentences of nine months or less. No one housed at the jail is forced to work, Crandall said. But many inmates choose to do so and the county relies on that unpaid labor in the jail.
“A large number of the inmates are needed for jobs inside the jail,” he said. “They work in the laundry, food preparation and janitorial.”
Flewelling, who founded Friends of Aroostook in 2008, thought a working partnership between the farm and the Aroostook County Jail could benefit all involved. As it turned out, Crandall had also been giving some thought to the benefits of a work program for his inmates and when the two ran into each other at a church function in 2013, the seeds were sown.
“Dale loved the idea,” Crandall said. “I told him, ‘You want them, and I want them there.’”
Crandall ironed out the detail and policies with the state Department of Corrections and by the time planting season began in 2014, the first crew of inmates were on their way to Flewelling’s leased land at the end of a dirt road outside of Houlton.
On any given day during the northern Maine growing season, four to five inmates put in 10 hours on Flewelling’s farm. To be eligible for the work, they must meet some very specific and rigid criteria, Crandall said, and only those inmates classified as minimum security are even considered.
“We pick them up every morning at 7 and they are ours until 5:30,” Flewelling said. “This program has far exceeded my expectations.”
Flewelling said he has no issues with the inmates who he described as “amazing to work with.”
All have been respectful, polite and committed to the work, he said. There are rules in place to make sure things stay that way, Crandall said. Trained supervisors are always on site with the inmates, he said, and at least once a day one of his deputies visits the farm.
“The inmates are never left alone,” Crandall said.
All rules that are in effect within the prison — no smoking, proper dress, no unauthorized outside contact and no alcohol — carry over to the farm.
“Any violations and they are done,” Crandall said.
This is not the only program that brings inmates outside to work the land in Maine. The Garden Project is part of the Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center in Belfast, where inmates with a year or less to go before the end of their sentences can take part in a gardening program to learn how to successfully rejoin the world outside prisons and jails.
In Aroostook, Flewelling has 21 acres in production this summer on leased land that would otherwise lay fallow and he has plans to add a firewood cutting venture next year to benefit those in need.
“Friends of Aroostook is about creating new venues to provide fresh produce and emergency firewood for Maine’s less fortunate,” he said. “Our organization was the first of its kind to use Aroostook’s unused fields and vast forests to address hunger and heating needs.”
While some of the inmates lack any farming experience at all, they are willing to get their hands dirty learning the difference between a weed and potato plant.
“What is it called we are doing today?” Mohamud asked one of the farm’s supervisors. “Weeding? Is that what it’s called?”
Originally from Somalia, Mohamud has been in Maine for 10 years living in the Lewiston area. He said drug-related charges earned him a six-month sentence, which he is looking to reduce by working on the farm.
“I also like that I am helping other people,” he said. “I like that the food is donated [and] not sold and I feel like I am giving back for the crime I have done.”
The work is hard, he said, and once his sentence is up, he did say he has no desire to ever return to a northern Maine field.
Wylie Harris, 57, another Lewiston-area inmate housed in Aroostook County, also is participating in the farm labor program. Currently serving 60 days on a domestic abuse charge, Harris also is a rookie when it comes to working the soil.
“This is my first time farming and I hope it’s my last,” he joked. “But it sure beats sitting in my cell all day.”
Harris’ major incentive to take part in the program is the reduced time on his sentence, he said, but he added he is getting something else out of it.
“It does make me feel pretty good to know I am helping someone else out,” he said. “I feel like I am doing something to benefit someone else.”
Among the inmates Erik Lamoreau, 35, of Easton is the go-to guy for agricultural pointers. Serving nine months for conspiracy, Lamoreau grew up farming in Aroostook County and is more than happy to spend his sentence back on the land.
“This is the best program we’ve got,” he said. “I like getting out here and getting my hands dirty [and] the other guys will look at me and ask how to do things so I feel like I’m a teacher and not just worker.”
When Flewelling started Friends of Aroostook they produced 3,600 ears of sweet corn that was distributed throughout the county. As the years have gone by, the group has diversified into peas, beans, cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, squash and potatoes distributed free of charge to Meals on Wheels, food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and others in need in Aroostook, Washington, Penobscot and Piscataquis counties.
“It’s thanks to the inmates we can grow all this food,” Flewelling said. “They are adding a great deal of quality to our products.”
Friends of Aroostook gets funding through grants and private donations, he said. Among them is the Maine Community Foundation, which has sponsored funds needed to pay the farm supervisors, and an anonymous Maine donor who contributed enough money to purchase every piece of mechanized machinery used on the farm.
Flewelling’s group is currently operating on a four-year lease on the farm, but they do have an option to purchase 150 acres and thanks to a $25,000 donation from the Quimby Family Foundation, a capital fundraising plan is in the works.
For now, all that is grown on the farm is donated, but Crandall said he is working on a plan so some of the vegetables can be used to feed inmates at his jail.
Back at the jail, Crandall said he and his staff see a positive difference in the inmates who spend their days on the farm.
“After talking to them after they’ve had a long, hard day working, they are tired,” Chief Deputy Sean Gillen, said. “They are tired by they are also happy.”
From all angles, the program is a win-win, Crandall said.
“The point is, these are guys who have taken from society and that is why they are sitting over [in the jail] right now,” he said, “Now, they are giving back to society instead of just sitting there and that food is going to the people who really need it.”
