The greenhouses at the former Guilford County Prison Farm used to be a popular attraction where people from mainly from Guilford and Alamance counties came to buy plants, garden objects and even patio furniture.
The Guilford County Board of Commissioners shut down the Prison Farm about a decade ago – however, this week, an announcement out of Guilford County government showed that there’s still plenty of life in the old greenhouses that used to be manned by inmates.
The Guilford County Board of Commissioners announced that it intends, – at its regular Thursday, March 16 meeting – to authorize the lease of the property to Brothers Excelling with Self-Sufficiency to Thrive (BEST) for the next five years. If approved, this will be the renewal of an existing lease with BEST.
BEST is a non-denominational organization that attempts to “provide creative, holistic strategies, with strong Biblical principles as its foundation, to construct a defense that identifies, attacks, and destroys problems, and the issues that surface from problems, that plague our young men of color, while developing the total man.”
The group’s organizers believe that, as a whole, society has “dropped the ball” with regard to ensuring the success and well- being of young men. So BEST is attempting to “aggressively recapture and reclaim” those young men and free them from predetermined destiny by encouraging them to explore their full potential as “productive, contributing members of society.”
One way to do that is to focus their efforts on nurturing life of the plant variety.
This coming lease arrangement is in keeping with the purpose of the Prison Farm: helping people get on and stay on a good life course. Former longtime Sheriff BJ Barnes was always proud of the fact that the Prison Farm was a place where inmates could benefit from fresh air and learn marketable job skills while in the county’s custody.
Two greenhouses at the old Prison Farm – now known as the Guilford County Farm – will be used by the group for an lease payment of $2,400 a year.
Here again, only black need apply. This idea is so reverse of helping all people that it is laughable.
You should start your own non-profit organization for countering the abuse of the white community because of the color of their skin and stop complaining because minority community’s setup their own non-profits for their communities.
Society ” has dropped the ball”.
What are they implying?
My post never give approved so I’m just going to say it…”Figures”.
Applause Applause!
Hooray for the county, they made the right call here. The farm should have never been closed. The farm was a positive for not only the prisoners but the community. Not only did they provide training and a sense of worth for the inmates, the inmates learned a work ethic which is absent in many of the criminal community. It was closed because the cost of operating it was judged as a drain, using actual cost versus the cost of helping prisoners change their lives which cannot be calculated in dollars and cents. The county also had visions of a mega site which never happened. I wish the folks renting the greenhouses luck. The operation will not be cost neutral, but the return will come from the expense to the community of not turning lives around. I suspect you know that, the county did not.
“So BEST is attempting to “aggressively recapture and reclaim” those young men and free them from predetermined destiny . . .”
There is no “predetermined” destiny. The troubles people find themselves in are the result of (usually) a long series of poor choices and bad decisions.
I’m in favor of the program and wish much success for those in it. But part of succeeding in our society is learning that those of another skin color are not bad people because of their skin color (which none of us had any control of at all). I’m not sure an integrated program would work better, but this does seem to go against the idea of healing the black-white divide in our society.
Why has society dropped the ball. What about the irresponsible parents who have children and don’t raise them to do what’s right and respect society. Have those parents look in the mirror and then let’s talk about who dropped the ball. Or just go ahead and blame White people.