Growing Second Chances

Building an Arboriculture Workforce Inside Rhode Island’s Prison System

On a sunny morning at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institution (ACI), a handful of men hunch over the strawberry beds, literally reaping the fruits of their labor. Hardly a word is exchanged as they focus on the morning’s most important task: gathering the bright red berries by the handful before the critters — or the guards or other inmates — get to them.

For these beginner gardeners, many of whom have been incarcerated for years, a ripe strawberry is more than a special breakfast. It’s a moment of sweetness, joy, and celebration of the dedication that has produced an abundant harvest year after year.

It might not look like a typical hands-on job training session on a municipal crew or at a tree care company. The trainees are wearing matching uniforms because they are all currently incarcerated. And that’s exactly the point.

Garden Time, a Providence, Rhode Island-based nonprofit, uses horticulture and arboriculture to address two urgent needs: the green industry’s demand for skilled, reliable workers and the community’s need to create meaningful second chances for people returning home from prison. At the center of that work is Kate Lacouture, Garden Time’s executive director and co-founder, who has quietly built a pathway from the prison yard to the urban forest.

At some of the ACI gardens, “Garden Club” (as it’s called over the PA system) meets only once a week, assuming staffing levels and the weather cooperate. Once the harvest is shared, the gardeners get to work, buzzing around every corner of the geometric garden — carefully avoiding the planting beds, of course — and peppering the already warm morning air with questions:

“Is this a weed?”

“When can we plant more cilantro?”

“How do you know when the head lettuce is ready?”

“Can you bring more mulch?”

“Where is the fish emulsion?”

“What’s the deal with the job training program? How do I sign up when I get out?”

“Is this a good bug?”

“Kate, can you write me a parole letter?”

At the center of the garden are the program facilitators, fielding questions and patiently guiding the group through each task. Originally a volunteer, Lacouture is a green industry professional who, like her colleagues, has spent years working in all kinds of gardens. This program has become her life’s work.

From Prison Gardens to Professional Tree Care

Garden Time began with a simple premise: meaningful work with plants can change lives. Inside several facilities at the Adult Correctional Institution, the organization maintains productive gardens that supply fresh produce while teaching horticultural fundamentals, including soil health, composting, biodiversity, and seasonal planning.

After release, participants can enroll in the Green Reentry Job Training Program, which builds on those in-prison foundations with a focus on tree care and other careers in the green industry. Lacouture recognized that many participants were drawn to the scale, technical skills, and long-term stewardship that arboriculture offers. For people whose lives have often been defined by past mistakes, the opportunity to invest in their communities carries its own quiet power.

Urban tree care also addresses a pressing workforce need. Across New England and beyond, municipalities, utilities, and private companies are struggling to recruit and retain entry-level tree workers. At the same time, communities are investing in expanding tree canopy in underserved neighborhoods but often lack the trained workforce needed to establish and maintain those trees.

Tree work is physically demanding, requires a strong safety culture, and calls for workers who can learn technical systems while performing outdoors in all conditions. Many incarcerated individuals already understand hard physical work and high-stakes environments; what they’re often missing is a bridge to a legitimate career.

Garden Time’s Green Reentry Job Training Program is designed to be that bridge.

Inside the Walls: Building Workforce Basics

Within the constraints of a correctional environment, job training focuses on building strong fundamentals. Participants begin with what every arborist knows is non-negotiable: safety, teamwork, environmental responsibility, and a strong work ethic.

Incarcerated gardeners are introduced to the tools of the trade, job-site awareness, and effective communication, even if chainsaws and chippers aren’t available inside the facility. They discuss how the work changes once power equipment enters the picture and why a strong ground crew is the backbone of every tree care operation.

In place of bucket trucks and climbing systems, facilitators emphasize the technical knowledge that serves as a foundation for any green industry career while helping participants develop the confidence and interpersonal skills needed to succeed both on the job and in life.

Technical knowledge, however, is only part of what happens during Garden Time. Participants arrive with varying levels of work experience, education, and confidence. Some haven’t been in a classroom since they were teenagers. Others have spent years being told what they aren’t capable of.

Garden Time’s approach is patient and practical. By connecting observation, communication, and critical thinking to real-world tree care and horticultural tasks, the program helps participants see themselves in a skilled trade. Mistakes are treated as opportunities to learn rather than proof of failure.

For people whose pasts are filled with things they cannot undo, discovering they are capable of complex, respected work — even within a correctional setting — can be transformative.

Beyond the Walls: Green Reentry and the Canopy Crew

Garden Time’s work doesn’t end at the prison gate. After release, participants are encouraged to enroll in the Green Reentry Job Training Program, an intensive eight-week course that focuses on arboriculture, landscaping, and urban agriculture with a clear focus on employability and long-term success.

Participants gain hands-on experience through employer visits, technical instruction from industry professionals, fieldwork, and a four-day internship that allows them to apply what they’ve learned in a professional setting.

Graduates with a particular interest in arboriculture may join Garden Time’s Canopy Crew, which cares for young street trees throughout Providence. Crew members receive advanced training and are responsible for watering, mulching, staking, and structural pruning — the essential early-care work that helps trees establish healthy form while protecting a city’s investment in its urban canopy.

For employers, the Canopy Crew represents a small but meaningful pipeline of workers who arrive with foundational technical knowledge and experience working as part of a team. For participants, it’s often their first opportunity to wear a crew shirt, use professional tools, and hear community members thank them for making their neighborhoods greener and cooler.

Why This Matters to the Tree Care Industry

Programs like Garden Time are more than feel-good success stories — they’re an emerging workforce strategy.

The same structural barriers that make it difficult to staff tree crews often shape the lives of people returning from incarceration:

• Limited exposure to skilled trades that provide family-sustaining wages.
• Barriers to education, certification, and employment.
• Few connections to employers willing to offer an opportunity.

Garden Time addresses these challenges by introducing green industry concepts during incarceration and reinforcing them through a structured reentry program. That approach shortens the learning curve employers often face with entry-level hires. A graduate who already understands root flare identification, proper mulching practices, or basic pruning principles isn’t a fully trained arborist — but they’re significantly ahead of someone whose only outdoor work experience has been mowing a lawn.

Just as importantly, Garden Time emphasizes the workplace skills that determine long-term success. Tree work depends on trust, communication, accountability, and a strong safety culture. Many participants have already learned to function in high-pressure environments. When those experiences are paired with supportive training, mentorship, and clear expectations, they can become valuable members of a tree care crew.

Research has shown that quality vocational training during incarceration is associated with higher employment rates and lower recidivism after release. Graduates who secure stable employment don’t just improve their own lives — they strengthen families and communities. When those careers are in tree care, the benefits extend even further through healthier street trees, better-maintained parks, and stronger urban forests.

Teaching Trees, Teaching Time

Trees offer a natural metaphor for change.

Young trees need the right conditions to thrive: healthy soil, proper planting depth, consistent watering, and protection from damage. Neglect those early years, and correcting problems later becomes much more difficult. Many of the people who participate in Garden Time understand what it’s like to grow up without those early supports.

The connection is never forced, but it’s always present. When participants identify a girdling root or discuss structural pruning, they’re also learning about intervention, resilience, and long-term stewardship. They see how a strong root system supports healthy growth and how trees develop strength by responding to the forces around them.

Tree care is patient work. So is personal change. Both require people willing to return season after season to prune, mulch, adjust, and try again.

What Employers Can Do

For employers interested in supporting programs like Garden Time, Lacouture’s advice is straightforward: treat them like any other workforce development pipeline.

• Connect with organizations like Garden Time and learn what participants are being taught. Align entry-level positions with skills such as tree identification, planting, watering, and ground operations.
• Offer site visits or job-shadowing opportunities so participants can experience a professional tree crew and better understand employer expectations.
• Consider structured interviews or paid work trials for graduates of prison-based and reentry green industry programs.
• Provide mentorship whenever possible. A foreman or experienced crew member who understands the challenges of reentry — including housing, transportation, and probation requirements — can make the difference between a temporary job and a lasting career.

This isn’t charity. It’s an investment in building a skilled, committed workforce. People who have worked hard for a second chance often bring a level of dedication and resilience that employers value.

A Longer View of the Canopy

Outside the ACI, the street trees planted by Green Reentry trainees will likely shade sidewalks long after their planters have moved on. Some of the men and women who planted them may pass by those trees years later; others may never see them again. But the act of planting them carefully and correctly has already made a lasting impact.

Garden Time’s model isn’t a quick fix, and Lacouture is the first to acknowledge that. Trees grow slowly. So do people. For an industry accustomed to working on long timelines, that pace should feel familiar. Arborists routinely invest in work whose greatest benefits they may never personally witness. Extending that same long-term perspective to people rebuilding their lives is a natural expression of the profession’s values.

In Providence, Rhode Island, the results are already becoming visible: a growing group of workers entering green careers with meaningful training and experience, and a community whose urban canopy is stronger because of their work.

For tree care professionals concerned about the future of both the workforce and the urban forest, Garden Time offers a compelling example. With thoughtful instruction, patient mentorship, and a willingness to recognize potential where others see only past mistakes, a correctional facility can become an unlikely nursery — one where skills, confidence, and second chances are cultivated every day.