Tag Archives: social justice

Recognizing a world-class program

Text includes excerpts from speeches by: Certified Vermiculture and Composting Specialists Juan Hernandez, Rudy Madrigal, and Nick Hacheney, with introduction by Kelli Bush, SPP Director for The Evergreen State College
Photos by Kelli Bush and Bethany Shepler, SPP Green Track Coordinator

Certified Vermiculture and Composting Specialists Juan Hernandez practices his speech before the graduation ceremony.

Monroe Correctional Complex – WA State Reformatory Unit (MCC-WSRU) recently graduated it’s first class of certified Vermiculture and Composting Specialists. Reaching this milestone is the result of a truly collaborative process, with contributions from incarcerated program participants and education instructor, WA Corrections staff, Tilth AllianceUniversity Beyond Bars, and Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP) staff at The Evergreen State College. The success of this diverse and mutually-invested team is a model for collaborative work; the shared accomplishment offers an abundance of hope for tackling other social justice and environmental challenges.

Tilth Alliance Program Coordinator, Justin Maltry (left) worked with partners to develop the certification. Corrections Officer Swan (pictured behind Justin, wearing a hat) was also critical to success effort.

The composting program at MCC-WSR was started by Nick Hacheney and corrections staff member Art King in 2009. Since that time, it has grown from a few hundred worms to a world-class program using multiple, innovative composting techniques. Not only does the program help significantly reduce food waste at the facility, but also provides participants extensive education, training, and opportunities to research and practice innovative composting techniques. Along the way, incarcerated participants have recruited input and assistance from professors, practitioners, and organizations around the country, and have found ways to improve on and fine tune their composting systems. Program protocols developed by incarcerated participants have been shared to start similar programs in other prisons and with non-profit organizations doing environmental and humanitarian work around the world. All of this work is done with tremendous support from corrections staff from MCC.

The graduation event was well-attended and included excellent speeches from graduates. Excerpts from their speeches follow.

Certificate development partners from WA Department of Corrections (CPM Anne Williams & Officer Jeff Swan), Tilth Alliance (Justin Maltry), and SPP (Kelli Bush) congratulate Juan Hernandez on his achievement.

Juan Hernandez

“I know for me it’s been a long journey to be standing here in front of everyone today, but I wouldn’t change a thing, because along the way I have grown as a man and human being and I’ve learned so much. Today marks the day in which we can officially declare that we finished one of our biggest goals–completing the vermiculture and composting specialist certification. We have been working on this for about a year and getting to this moment has certainly been quite a journey through blood, sweat, tears, and stress.

This certification has not only enriched my life here, but I believe that it will truly give me opportunities when I get released to find employment and follow a career in sustainability. So today I stand in front of you a man with a dream but not only that; here stands a man with a dream and the skill-set to follow that dream and make it a reality. I started my journey of sustainability after my journey for bettering my life had already started. I now see that my two journeys are closely intertwined.

This program and programs like this are not only important but essential to guys in here in regaining their humanity and getting them ready for reentry into society.

I believe that not only do we recycle food waste, but we also recycle people. And so, with that, I leave you saying this: please don’t judge a person by their mistakes, but judge them by how they learn from their mistakes.

Juan Hernandez talking with Rudy Madrigal and Tilth Alliance Program Coordinator, Justin Maltry, about the Black Soldier Fly composting program.

Rudy Madrigal

“About a year and a half ago my friend Nick told me that they really needed some workers at the worm farm and he asked if I would consider working back there. I’m not going to lie; I was dodging him for a while. But finally he got me to commit and I went out for an interview.

I’m not going to confirm or deny that I may have come for the promise of desserts. What Nick did try to convince me of was that I was going to be helping the environment, that this program would grow and become what we wanted it to be, that I would be given the right tools to succeed both in here and on the outside, and that in the end I would be recognized for all my hard work. Well everything my friend told me that day was true, and it happened! And that makes this day such a special day for me.

Thank you Nick for being a great friend and mentor, for challenging me, for always holding me accountable, telling me the truth, even if it hurt a little bit, for changing the view I had on the world and helping me realize the impact that I have on it, and for trusting me with the black soldier fly program.”

At the worm castings sifting table, Rudy Madrigal shakes hands with Sgt. LaMunyon.

Nick Hacheney

“Days like today don’t happen often in prison and it really means a great deal to us that you have decided to spend this time here.

First, we would like to thank all the DOC officials in the room. These types of programs would not happen if it wasn’t for the vision and courage of prison officials. Administrators take risks to make programs like this happen. They have to find money in ever-shrinking budgets and they have to bravely promote a narrative that prisoners are capable of great things and worth making an investment in.

We had the right ingredients here in staff willing to work with us, support from community partners and men who got busy making a difference in their world. So thank you to all.

It will surprise most people to learn that prisoners actually care about big issues like global warming and water quality. But these guys are more than prisoners – they are fathers who care about the world their children are growing up in; they are environmentalists who care about the planet; and they are advocates who understand the needs of a growing world population.

Nick Hacheney helped found the composting program at MCC and develop program education materials and vermicomposting certificate.

Composting Technicians talk with Sgt. LaMunyon as they sift worm castings.

Across cultures and values

SPP Graduate Research Assistant Brittany Gallagher helps an Oregon spotted frog take its first leap into the wild. Photo by Matthew Williams of the New York Times.

By Brittany Gallagher, External Affairs Manager, The Nature Conservancy

When I was looking into graduate schools, I searched for an environmental studies program in which social justice was an integral–and integrated–part. As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I was sensitive to inequitable global environmental policy and its detrimental effects to community economic development on both a global and a personal scale. I was interested to fill in my gaps in experience and knowledge with a more thorough understanding of environmental and social justice at home in the US. Though Evergreen’s Graduate Program on the Environment seemed like a good fit, it was the existence of the “Sustainable Prisons Project” (as it was called at the time) on campus that sealed the deal for me.

Thanks to a generous Sara Bilezikian Memorial Fellowship supporting students working for justice in the environmental arena, I was able to begin my time as an MES student even as I moved to Olympia from out of state. I had also emailed SPP staff before I arrived, applying for a job that didn’t exist yet, but thanks to some persistence and a fortuitously timed grant, I became the Education & Evaluations Coordinator for SPP. Alongside my studies, I spent my two years at Evergreen running a pair of lecture series at Stafford Creek Corrections Center and Washington Corrections Center for Women. I also worked to evaluate SPP’s various ecological conservation programs. Out of this effort grew my Master’s thesis, examining the social and human effects of participating in SPP’s conservation programs on the inmate technicians who cared for frogs, dogs, butterflies, and prairie plants.

In the years since graduation, I have mentioned SPP in every job interview I’ve had, as well as dropping it into casual conversation on dates, and with strangers sitting next to me on airplanes. We may forget it on our super-green Evergreen campus in the “upper-left” USA, but SPP’s model is fascinating to people. Working with state agencies, prison staff and inmates, academics, and volunteers from the community gave me the skills needed to engage across cultures and value sets to achieve a common purpose. These experiences translate, and they have continued to pay off as I’ve gone on to work in international development and education, and in my current position as External Affairs Manager for The Nature Conservancy in Washington. Now more than ever, cooperation and collaboration with perhaps-unlikely partners for the good of people and the planet is the way to go, and I am proud to have been a piece of SPP’s important and continuing great work.