Prisoners give back
It’s Christmas Eve and our Christmas food parcels are being carried across the City Mission forecourt by volunteer military policemen to go in car boots.
Christchurch City Mission volunteer Lawrence unloads crates veges from Rolleston Prison.
In the cars, parents are smiling with relief, and children are squealing, happy that a City Mission staff member has tossed some lollies through the window. This is what giving joy at Christmas looks like.
Everything in those boxes – even the food we had to buy with donor money – has a story of compassion behind it. But the most heartwarming story of all might surprise you, the story of the fresh vegetables.
It begins on a Wednesday morning. Foodbank volunteer Lawrence climbs into our van and drives it out of our Hereford Street site and north towards Marshlands where Zealandia Horticulture has a huge production centre that grows seedlings and young plants.
Every fortnight Zealandia donates trays of seedlings to us and there they are ready to be loaded in the van when Lawrence arrives.
“The prisoners are aware they are giving back to the community, and I hear stories of how their own families and friends struggle ‘out there’...
“- Principal Corrections Officer Bevan Archer
Karen Wylaars pops out from the offices to say hi. Zealandia donates plants to many schools and organisations, but she admits this City Mission connection is extra special. “It’s a real feelgood thing going on here,” she says warmly.
Donated seedlings ready at Zealandia
From Belfast the van heads southwest across the city before veering out towards the Rolleston Prison on the town’s outskirts.
Lawrence turns the van into the prison and after security checks he drives inside the outer grey fence line and towards some outbuildings and vegetable gardens where our vegetables are grown.
Two prisoners help unload the seedlings, then fill the back with crates of freshly picked vegetables grown from previous seedling deliveries.
Principal Corrections Officer Bevan Archer is there. He says gardening is important to how prisoners are being readied to rejoin society in several ways. That the food is being grown for the City Mission foodbank clients adds an extra special touch to this.
Prisoners can choose whether to do it or not but for those who do there’s a lot of pride and applause when the number of crates filled for us is announced at team meetings.
Gardens at Rolleston Prison.
“The prisoners are aware they are giving back to the community, and I hear stories of how their own families and friends struggle ‘out there’. I would say some of them are proud and happy to do what they are doing for the community,” Bevan says.
The smell of leeks and spring onions fills the van cabin as the van loaded with all sorts of vegetables leaves the prison and heads back to Christchurch.
Back at our foodbank, the van is emptied and the crates of vegetables are stacked on a pallet then forklifted into the chiller.
Next morning the crates appear at our food bank sorting table and our volunteer team on that day starts cleaning them and putting the veges into the right-sized bundles to go join the food parcels.
Some bundles go to the self-serve foodbank and others go into the prepacked parcels waiting for collection.
Yet again the vegetables are being handled by people who are giving to the City Mission to help others in the community. Everyone who is part of this story is part of a community effort to bring good food to others who can’t afford to buy it.
All these people are connected by compassion even when they don’t know who donated, grew, transported the vegetables, - or even who will receive them. They know they are part of something good that the City Mission is providing.