Pickaway inmates help with Sanctuary projects
September 18, 1992, By Gaylon Vickers -- Enterprise Staff Writer
It was just another construction project among many the Pickaway Correctional Institution volunteer laborers made at The Olde Gahanna Sanctuary last month.
Gahanna's director of public service Terry Jordan said Gahanna will utilize the community outreach program from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections from a number of projects this year.
In fact, in 1998 "they did $15,000 worth of work, easy, probably $20,000 in free labor," Jordan said. Gahanna provided the materials, the prisoners supplied the labor.
And they aren't done, Jordan said. "They are lined up to come back and do some more brick work at the Sanctuary. The are also going to do painting."
Eventually, Jordan said, the prisoners, who are convicted of lower level felony charges, will work on the water, sewer and street service complex to be built for the city out in the Industrial Zone.
"That probably won't happen until the year 2000", he added.
"We think it's a great program," Jordan said. "It provides excellent service to our citizens. It helps them, the prisoners, pay back the community."
"It's a good joint program between our citizens and the department of corrections," Jordan said.
The Rehabilitation and Corrections program keeps prisoners limited to working for non-profit organizations and government agencies, Jordan said. "We are utilizing them to get a lot of jobs done in our city." he said.
The volunteer inmates have put roofs on buildings, remodeled the inside of The Olde Gahanna Sanctuary, built its handicapped access ramp, picked up litter and cleaned out creeks and streams in Gahanna.
"You might be surprised, but they have a lot of skills, like carpentry and painting," Jordan said.
Besides inmates from Pickaway, Jordan said he has also used teams from the Orient Correction Center. They put roofs on the park shelter houses, he said.
"If I count everything, they also did some remodeling and carpentry work at the service complex, put a fence at the service complex and installed a drop ceiling in the recreational complex," Jordan said.
"That labor would have amounted to over $20,000," Jordan said.
The work is not only god for the community, according to Pickaway Correction Institute Capt. Mark Tilley, administrative captain in charge of community programs. Some inmates in the center don't want to work and others are reluctant to join the community service program, he said.
But once they get started, a change overtakes them.
"Once they get out there, and get started, it seems to benefit them a lot," Tilley said. "The guys who work for me very seldom, if ever, get in trouble.
"I think they care more than they did once they get involved in the community service program," Tilley said.
"A lot of them, they don't realize, at first, why they are out there," Tilley said. "Then, once they have been out there a while, they see some of the mistakes they have made."
"They are pretty proud of the things they are giving back to the community," Tilley said.
Tilley said the inmates work for many central Ohio communities, not just Gahanna.
"We do work for just about everybody: West Jefferson, Columbus, Hoover Park. In the summer, we take care of a lot of schools; we work for Grove City Parks and Recreation, and we kind of adopted Fayette County schools. We also do a lot of work with Pickaway County schools.
"We get at least 80 hours a week out of the two crews," Tilley said.
Tilley said he started with the community outreach program six years ago. Since then, "We've steadily increased the amount of work and the number of people we do work for," he said.
