Smith County jail inmates grow fresh produce for East Texas Food Bank

SMITH COUNTY, Texas (KLTV) - One of the most important parts of the East Texas Food Bank’s distribution is their focus on fresh food. One way they do that is through their garden along Hwy 155 in the Noonday area, and the people who tend to the garden are inmates at the Smith County Jail. “It gives them a feeling of self-worth. It lets them get out of the hot jail cell and move around and exercise. A lot of these people, they would do anything to get out of the cell and come out here and work,” said Smith County Sheriff, Larry Smith. The garden has been around for over 15 years with a variety of vegetables. The East Texas Food Bank said this produce is critical for them as they work to end the meal gap in East Texas. But it takes a community effort. “Well this is a huge impact we get a few truck loads of fresh produce from these gardens every year and it’s not only what we get, it’s what we give back to those trustees and the Sheriff’s department,” said East Texas Food Bank CEO, Dennis Cullinane. A detention officer tells us these inmates have been out here almost everyday in the summer heat. On Thursday morning, they dug up several potatoes from the ground. We spoke with Gilbert Mitchell who has volunteered in the garden for three and a half years. “It’s good to come out because it gets you ready to come back into society, that’s the thing about it. And it helped me a lot because now I can go back, instead of me going out and doing what I was doing, I ain’t going to be doing that no more. So it helped.” The East Texas Food Bank said they hope to eventually get around 160,000 pounds of produce from this garden.