Dear Friend,
Last year, when we asked for your help raising money for our Garden Time prison garden program, you generously contributed more than $2,000 through the online Seed Money platform. You chose to give men and women who have had limited success in their lives the chance to gain confidence, learn important life skills, and experience hope.
Please join us again this year. Click here to make your gift of $20, $50, $100 or more to Garden Time!
You supported gardens at our three program facilities helping serve fresh produce to over 1800 inmates. You gave vocational training to men and women who will leave prison with job skills in a competitive market decreasing the chance they’ll wind up back behind bars.
You brought guests to Garden Time who spoke on permaculture, environmental justice, organic pest control, soil science, and medicinal herbs. You helped the men in Maximum Security set up a worm composter. You brought a new native plants garden to the women in the Minimum Security Facility. You encouraged the gardeners at the Medium Security Facility to turn their knowledge of herbs into a culinary herbs reference guide for kitchens at all the facilities.
Help us meet our fundraising goal of $2,500 to keep gardening in Rhode Island prisons. A gift of $20, $50, $100 or more will ensure that Garden Time programs continue for another year. Once again, we’re participating in Seed Money, a granting program that matches $400 if we can raise $600 on our own. But only the first 75 organizations to achieve $600 will receive matching funds from Seed Money. The drive ends on Thursday, December 15th, so please make your gift now! Click here to go to our Seed Money Campaign (or paste the following link in your browser: https://www.seedmoney.org/campaign/351/garden-time-at-the-ri-adult-correctional-institutes)
There are plenty of other ways to support our program! If you’d rather make a tax-deductible donation by check, please make it out to “Garden Time” and send it to 286 Rochambeau Ave., Providence, RI 02906. We also love in-kind donations! For Rhode Islanders: Garden Time gets 1% back from East Side Market for collected receipts. So, if you shop there, please save your East Side Market receipts for us! Let us know and we’ll arrange to pick them up.
You can also spread the word! Share widely with friends who might be interested in supporting prison garden rehabilitation. Like us on Facebook and receive Garden Time updates.
And last, but not least, if you’d like to volunteer, we’d love to have you! We are accepting applications for volunteers for the 2017 growing season. Let us know if you would like to learn more about volunteering with Garden Time.
Your gift means the world to us and to the men and women gardening in our programs right now. Thanks always for your support!
Kate Lacouture
Co-Founder & Executive Director, Garden Time, Inc.
Vera Bowen
Co-Founder & Board President, Garden Time, Inc.
P.S. To understand the impact of your gift, please listen to our gardeners at Max describe what the garden means to them on RI Public Radio’s story about our program last year: http://ripr.org/post/maximum-security-prison-gardening-gives-inmates-chance-grow Then visit our Seed Money page and make a gift of $20, $50, $100 or more!