Tag Archives: SNAP

All snaps! Airway Heights amazing firewood program

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in Community Organizations Partners Prison Life Tours

To make or receive donations from the firewood program, please check out SNAP’s Energy Assistance Program: https://www.snapwa.org/energy-assistance-programs/

Article text and photos by Joslyn Rose Trivett, SPP Network Manager

I have known about Airway Heights Corrections Center (AHCC)’s firewood program for years, but had no idea of the scale. I have never seen so much firewood.

On public lands such as parks and state forests, AHCC’s community crews remove trees which fell during storms, and cut trees which are crowding others or posing a hazard. Logs come back to the minimum security yard for splitting, stacking and curing. The prison partners with SNAP (Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners) to provide people of low income with no-cost firewood, to heat their homes. The winter of 2015-16, AHCC’s firewood program donated more than 370 cords of wood to Spokane County residents! 

half-the-firewood
This photo shows about *half* the firewood currently stacked at the Corrections Center.
chipper-meeting
A spontaneous meeting forms around the chipper: DOC staff, visiting compost experts, and a technician discuss the finer points of chipping waste wood. (The chips get turned into compost for the gardens, of course.)
firewood-2
Dang, those are good looking stacks!
firewood-splitter
A technician paused in his work with the splitter so I could take his photograph.
firewood-maul
The crew manually splits and stacks firewood, building their communities’ resources.