Eleven years ago, the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office embarked on a new method of providing corrections services. We opened the Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center. The center is a 32-bed men’s facility where offenders who are serving the last months of their sentence can learn interpersonal skills, engage in community service, attend personal enrichment classes and learn to create a successful life after incarceration.
Community service is a cornerstone of the Reentry experience. Over the last decade the reentry center has donated over fifty thousand community service hours to vital community projects throughout Waldo County. The flagship project created with the Reentry Center is the County Garden. The garden began on a five acre parcel of farmland the County leased on Rt. 141 in Swanville, which in the first year of its infancy, yielded 20,600 pounds of produce. It has since evolved into a 63 acre farm purchased by the County with more than 18 acres planted each year. Two large buildings have been erected to serve as equipment storage and cold storage for preserving vegetables for longer periods of time. The yield of produce harvested has also grown from a few thousand pounds in the beginning to an incredible 170,000 pounds in the 2020 growing season. The bounty of food is all given to more than 30 food pantries, churches and non-profit agencies serving Waldo County. Also, the residents of the Reentry Center are fed from the food they have grown themselves which not only offsets the facility’s food costs, it also serves to teach our residents how to grow and prepare their own food.Serving such a vital, active role in this project has also given many of them a great sense of pride and accomplishment.
County Commissioner William Shorey of Searsport was a founder of the garden and continues to oversee the operation today. His vast knowledge of farming and food production has contributed greatly to the increased production year after year. Although we are always amazed and excited about the enormous yield that comes out of that garden, we also can’t help but recognize the great amount of personal growth that is occurring within the lives of our residents as they spend countless, life-enriching hours in our fields and with this great man.
We recognize that it takes as many partners as it does hands to make this enormous project a success year after year. We are so fortunate to live in such an incredible community and to have so many partners that contribute to our success. For instance, a few years ago we had a very small harvest because Maine’s bee populations had been decimated by a virus. The “The Bee Lady” who lives nearby keeps eight or nine of her hives right in the garden. If you walk anywhere close, you can hear the buzzing and see the constant activity of the worker bees coming and going. We get the pollinators and she splits the honey with us. We have another neighbor who cuts the hay in the uncultivated fields. He keeps the hay and we get our fields mowed.
Waldo County has much to be proud of. It is a great privilege and pleasure for the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office and our Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center to be a part of this wonderful community and to serve our citizens.
As a retired teacher and professor of literacy, I now in my retirement spend time writing novels, poetry, creative nonfiction, radio essays, and picture books. My foremost audience is young readers ages 11-14. But I also write stuff for grown-ups.
After years of academic writing for textbooks, chapters, and refereed journals, AND years of being Associate Editor of The Reading and Writing Quarterly, sitting on various editorial advisory boards, reading and critiquing hundreds of article drafts, mentoring my own grad students and junior faculty - I decided there needs to be a place to go and learn. Learning what you need to know to succeed can pave the path for a very successful career. You'll find some on my website.
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Dr. Wendy C. Kasten, Writer 