You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more protected plot of land in Coweta Co.
"They're convicted felons but most of them are on the downward slide as far as parole and being able to get out or finish their sentences,” Warden Bill McKenzie said. “That's the reason they come here."
The Coweta County Prison’s ready workforce camp in Newnan allows inmates to work while serving time. Those some inmates choose to volunteer on top of their allotted job.
"This is not their regular job,” McKenzie explained. “They work in our paint and body shop here…these guys volunteer to work in the garden."
According to McKenzie, the garden started small around 12 years ago and has since grown. Most recently, the season’s crops are estimated to produce 1,400 pounds of tomatoes and 3,000 ears of corn, helping to supplement the prison’s food supply as well as trim prison costs.
Yet McKenzie said the garden offers more than what’s put on inmates’ plates.
"A lot of people say prison is getting rougher and tougher…but we do our best to work with them and train them and give them the guidance they need. We treat them like men,” McKenzie said, adding that the volunteers often don’t know anything about gardening prior to working on the prison plot.
The gardening also offers prisoners a chance to get outdoors and work on something they can watch unfold, according to McKenzie.
"I think a lot of it has to do with the quietness,” Deputy Warden Larry Clifton said. “It's almost like being free within the fence."
With the hope that volunteers will ultimately leave with a new skill to pass on.
"Every one of them will go home at one point,” McKenzie said. “I'd like to think we were able to give them just a little bit, to do something with their families, they can teach their kids to do."
