Almost 60 members of the public attended a five-course meal at a state prison in northeast Ohio that the facility says is the first of its kind in state history.
The meal was prepared with food grown in the garden on the grounds of Grafton Correctional Institution in Grafton, Ohio.
The incarcerated men who participated in the event are enrolled in a course through the organization EDWINS that teaches students cooking techniques and other certifications needed to work in a restaurant.
The meal was prepared with food grown in the garden on the grounds of Grafton Correctional Institution in Grafton, Ohio.
The incarcerated men who participated in the event are enrolled in a course through the organization EDWINS that teaches students cooking techniques and other certifications needed to work in a restaurant.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Figuratively, what's happening is we're reframing what's possible in prison.
00:07What's actually happening, we're about to do a dinner for 60 people inside a prison,
00:12next to our garden, with our class of 20-plus inmates who make it all possible.
00:17We're setting up a catering event inside of an institution,
00:20and I think that's super exciting.
00:22Out of anything else, they get to see what we are like,
00:25because we're just regular people for the most part.
00:27So in 2012, that's 12 years ago from today,
00:30classes started here teaching men in prison about culinary arts and hospitality.
00:35That was it. It was a belief that every human being, regardless of their past,
00:39has the right to a fair and equal future.
00:41The garden is just a way to really express ourselves from the ground up,
00:44really express ourselves with what we're cooking, and who's preparing it,
00:48and who's growing it. So it's not just a garden, right?
00:51It's not just nourishment. It speaks for so much more.
00:53If you go back to the lock, it gets...
01:09We have a kitchen team. We have a team that's running food.
01:13We have a team that's on drinks, because every course is a different drink,
01:16hand-modeled, crafted mocktail. And then we have service staff.
01:20Having these group of guys who I would call my friends cook with me
01:25kind of fills that in, because at home, it's my sister and I,
01:28or my mom and I, and we're always cooking.
01:31Many of our guys that live here are going home,
01:33so they're going home to be our neighbors.
01:35We want our neighbors to be prepared to be law-abiding citizens,
01:38and that's what this program is about.
01:40It's not just about teaching guys how to cook or how to prepare food.
01:43This gives them re-entry level skills so that when they go home,
01:46they can be successful in that environment.
01:48It's a program that I actually want to carry to the outside when I leave here.
01:53There's housing. There's so many different opportunities
01:56that they make available to us, and they actually care.
01:58This could be the rest of my life, and they're doing this for everybody.
02:01They're not looking at me as a number. They're looking at me as a person.