The Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) for a number of years has operated a farm and let the prisoners work on and maintain it.

On the farm there is a garden, and the second straight year, SOCF has donated the crops to the Scioto County Homeless Shelter in efforts help with a sustainable food source in the shelter.

"This is the second year they have donated this to us. The garden has grown by leaps and bounds since last year. We are going to be able to help a lot more people with this year's donation," Maureen Cadogan, Director of the Scioto County Homeless Shelter said.

The prison brings the food to the shelter twice a week. The shelter's pantry is open Tuesdays and Thursdays.

There have been times when what SOCF brought was so big the shelter could not use all of it and shared it with many other agencies in the area.

The homeless shelter provided the seeds to the prison for the garden.

"This is a great community service project for us. Inmates of the Ross County Correctional Facility come down and work the farm and the garden," Warden Phillip Kerns said.

Inmates are screened thoroughly before they are allowed to work on the farm.

"We are hopping this year we will be able to produce double what we were able to contribute last year," Warden Kerns stated.

Some of the items that are grown in the garden include corn, pepper plants, tomatoes, cabbage, green beans and other various items.

Inmates are at the garden once or twice a week tending to it and the farm.

The farm is 1,265 acres and nearly 588 of it is crops, and 400 acres of pasture. There are 525 head of cattle and about 180 calves.

"We are going to try to increase our cattle population up to 1,000 and we provide that service for the department by raising cattle and processing beef," Warden Kerns explained.

The Warden explained this is something that will happen next year and into the future.

"For the inmates that work the garden and the farm this is the only way to give back. They are working their job but this is giving something back to the community, they see it and realize it. For us as an institution this is something we should do and do this every year," Warden Kerns said.

"We have learned to preserve items for later usage, that has worked out really well for us. We thank the Lord for using SOCF as a vehicle of blessing to the community," Cadogan said.