Hutchinson named Source Trailblazer Award winner by Press Herald
Mark Hutchinson, a University of Maine Cooperative Extension professor, and Ryan Fries, captain of the Maine State Prison, were awarded the 2018 Source Trailblazer Award by the Portland Press Herald. Every year, the paper’s Source Awards honor a handful of accomplished Maine residents, organizations and businesses working in the arena of sustainability. Through a new initiative at the Maine State Prison, overseen by Capt. Fries and Hutchinson, inmates compost, recycle, grow vegetables and manage beehives. The programs have saved the prison money, given the inmates job training, and helped them cope with past traumas as well as the restrictions of prison life, according to the article. Three months ago, the prison also launched Master Gardener training taught by Hutchinson and his UMaine Extension colleagues. Each inmate who goes through the 80-hour training will become a certified master gardener and must donate 40 hours of work producing vegetables for the midcoast community, the article states. “It gives them a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and it gives them something to look forward to in the day,” Hutchinson said. “Anytime you get your hands in the dirt and work in the soil, I think that’s therapeutic environment for them to be in.” Waste360 also reported on the prison’s sustainability efforts and cited the Press Herald article.