AUSTIN, Texas — Hundreds of organizations donate food to the Central Texas Food Bank and contribute to the fight against hunger.  Among its most recent donors are the people in custody at the Travis County Jail. A program there is helping nourishing those in need. It helps with the personal growth of inmates as well. 

The Travis County Sheriff’s Office donated almost 200 pounds of inmate-grown squash, zucchini, beets, and leafy greens. The produce will go to initiatives like Central Texas Food Bank’s summer meals program, where they expect to prepare more than 100,000 meals for children at risk of facing hunger during the summer. 

“For us to supply that kind of bandwidth, we need a lot of help from the community,” said Heath Ribordy, Central Texas Food Bank’s director of agency services. “Their hard fruits of labor, so to speak, are coming right to our doors, so that we can get free, nutritious product to our hungry neighbors.”

Ribordy expects the jail to supply enough vegetables to make 500 meals a week. Some minimum security inmates learn gardening, agriculture, how to plant, tend, and harvest vegetables at the Travis County Correctional Complex. Sheriff’s Office officials said it is one of the most popular programs there. 

“It’s kind of an escape from their current reality of being locked up inside the jail,” said Steven Wentrcek, a division manager at the Sheriff’s Office. “They can get out amongst the sun, the plants.” 

The program is part of the correctional facility’s efforts to teach marketable skills to those in its custody. Wentrcek said there are local farmers who have expressed interested in hiring former inmates.

“They could be at crossroads in their life right now,” he said. “They can choose to change their life. Giving them even the smallest bit of direction could be the difference for that one inmate.”