Inmate work project blooms
By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward O'ahu Writer
KAILUA — A partnership between the women's correctional facility and the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle will benefit the Windward Senior Day Care Center when inmates put to work what they've learned in horticulture classes and renovate the senior center's garden for free.
About 16 inmates at the Women's Community Correctional Center, including horticulture students and women who care for various Kailua landscape projects, will revamp the center's front and back gardens beginning Dec. 2.
The arrangement offers a perfect example of how the community can help state agencies, said Carol Ann Ellett, project coordinator for the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle.
"It's such a good model, because it's showing that a partnership between nonprofits and the state can work," she said.
The horticulture program was made possible in part through the partnership two years ago between WCCC and the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle to improve the facility's landscaping.
Once landscaping began, the partners recognized an opportunity to teach inmates plant care and propagation. The Outdoor Circle raised money to refurbish a nursery at the center, and the department provided classes.
Maureen Tito, education program manager for the state Department of Public Safety, said the partnership improved quality of life for the inmates, whose self-esteem gets a boost when members of the community show they care. And the training makes them more employable, Tito said.
"They see a future, because they see people interested in them and acknowledging what they can do."
The department provides inmates 80 to 100 programs a year statewide, with classes in cultural, academic, physical and spiritual topics. About 1,500 inmates of 4,000 participate, Tito said.
The department provides the classes, but the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle contributes money, volunteer trainers and community contacts with supportive businesses and nurseries to enhance the program, she said.
At the Windward Senior Day Care Center, inmates will remove and install trees and plants to give the environment a brighter, more colorful appearance, Ellett said.
Some of the plants will come from a nursery operated by the horticulture students, and some will be purchased with money raised from a plant sale at the I Love Kailua Town Party. Plants for sale were raised by the inmates, Ellett said.
For the senior center, on North Kainalu Drive at St. Christopher's Church, the project will give the gardens a needed facelift, said manager Anarita Kanahele. More color improves peoples' dispositions, Kanahele said, acknowledging that her clients like to putter in the garden, raking and pruning as part of their daily routine.
"Our participants really love and enjoy the outdoors, and this project will make it worthwhile to come every day," Kanahele said.
Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.
