INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Women’s Fund of Central Indiana is prepared to invest $8 million to $10 million over the next decade to help female ex-offenders escape a lifetime of poverty.
The vehicle for transforming these young women’s lives is a 17-acre residential farm on the south side of Indianapolis, which is expected to begin operations in the fall. Women will live and work at Bellfound Farm for up to two years, receiving mental health counseling, career coaching and skills development as they cooperatively run the small urban farm.
Bellfound Farm, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, was created by Nekoma Burcham and Alena Jones. They were winners of the Women’s Fund’s NEXT Fellowship Prize, a nationwide competition for solutions to help women ages 18 to 24 who have been involved in the criminal justice system move from poverty to independence.
“We know that 90 to 98 percent of women in the criminal justice system have experienced trauma, and the number one reason women re-offend is a lack of safe housing and stable employment,” Burcham said. “Having a safe place to live and their basic needs met allows the women to switch the focus from survival to starting to imagine a future.”
Women’s Fund, an endowed fund of the Central Indiana Community Foundation, created the NEXT Initiative in 2015 after finding a lack of effective programming for young women motivated to escape a life of poverty.
For Jennifer Pope Baker, executive director of Women’s Fund, it was a call to action. “We talked with foundations across the country and found that this gap in service is a common concern and that there was a significant need to create holistic, wrap-around services that could be duplicated anywhere in the world.”
NEXT reached out nationally to identify social entrepreneurs who were working to remove barriers on the path to economic security. Turns out, they didn’t have to go far.
“We found our NEXT fellows in our backyard,” Pope Baker said.
Burcham, 40, and Jones, 25, met at IUPUI, where both were working on a sustainable management and policy degree. Burcham brings more of a business and support services expertise to the project, while Jones has extensive experience in farming.
They came together over the idea of creating a farm, bringing young women into a safe space where they could learn skills, receive mental health care and prepare for advanced education and a career. After a rigorous vetting process, their idea came out on top in 2015, and the two spent the next two years working with Women’s Fund advisers and others to hone their plan.
“I’ve been on the advisory board of Indiana Women’s Prison for at least 15 years,” Pope Baker said. “I know the number one reason that women re-offend is because they don’t feel safe, their basic needs are not being met, so they’ll do a technical violation because, going back to prison, they at least have a place to sleep, they have food, they have a modicum of safety.”
The Women’s Fund financial commitment stretches out 10 years, fully funding the program’s incubation period, as well as the farm’s operations to the tune of $1 million each year for the first three years, then scaling that back gradually. Already, Pope Baker estimates, her organization has invested close to $3 million.
David Becker — a NEXT advisory council member, Women’s Fund supporter, entrepreneur and business adviser — is firmly behind the venture. So much so, he has pledged half a million dollars to the project.
“That’s how much I believe in them and what they’re doing,” he said. “I’ve probably looked at 200 to 300 business plans over 30 years. I invest in the people as much as I invest in the ideas. These two ladies, they’ve got it. Their determination, their grit has just been staggering. I think they’re going to be a rip-roaring success.”
Becker, who grew up in Monrovia, said he’s an Indiana farm kid at heart. “I know the curing power of growing things.”
At the same time, he said, the women will learn more than just farming skills. They’ll also learn basic business principles — accounting, budgeting, marketing, retail — tools that will help sustain them when they leave the program. They’ll also learn about giving back. The farm plans to donate a portion of harvested produce to the neighboring community to address food insecurity.
“In many cases, the women we’ll work with have been talked about their entire lives as a problem for society,” Jones said. “By donating some of the food the women grow, they start to see themselves as part of a solution. It shifts their entire mindset, and that’s the goal.”
The first cohort of five women — all non-violent offenders — is expected to arrive in September, after renovations to the 100-year-old farm, located near Troy Avenue and Meridian Street. On the land are three houses, a storefront, greenhouse and two barns. The first harvest likely won’t be ready until next summer, but the entire site is expected to be in production within three years, growing dozens of varieties of fruits, vegetables and flowers.
Burcham and Jones will work with PACE Indy, the Marion County Jail and other groups for referrals to the farm. Participation is voluntary.
Eventually, 20 women will be able to live on the farm for up to two years. On staff will be a clinical psychologist, licensed therapist, educational coaches and administrative support. After the two-year period, the program will continue to help support the women with training and services for up to five years as they earn a degree or training certificate, find employment that leads to a career and acquire long-term housing.
“It takes five to seven years to climb out of poverty,” Jones said. “We want to be able to walk with the women in our program every step of the way.”
The name Bellfound comes from the process of making bells.
“We love that because when women come to the farm, they have so much resilience they bring with them,” Jones said. “Bell-making is a metaphor for taking a resilient element and shaping it into something with a strong voice, which is what we hope they are able to do here.”
Lori Ball, former chief operating officer for BioStorage Technologies and now owner of a business consulting company called Lab Strategies, serves on the Women’s Fund board. As a member of the NEXT advisory council, she spent several months preparing Burcham and Jones to launch their dream.
“The farmers’ idea was that the farm not only serve the local community, but from a mental health perspective, getting your hands literally in the dirt can be therapeutic,” Ball said.
Because employment is the most significant predictor of success, she said, the goal is to create employment skills as well as opportunities.
To that end, local chefs have committed to buying food from the farm and also allowing residents to experiment with different parts of their operation, whether that be on the front end or behind the scenes on the business side.
Ball likens it to a miniature MBA program and believes the successful resident will feel equipped to jump back into their life with confidence.
“The program tentacles go way beyond two years,” she said. “We will be helping them have soft landings into their own lives. This is a long-term investment in these women’s lives.”
If successful, the program could be replicated in communities around the country.
Jones and Burcham are ready for the challenge.
“We’re not just growing food,” Jones said. “We’re growing futures.”
__
Source: The Indianapolis Star
___
Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com
— Maureen C. Gilmer, Indianapolis Star via The Associated Press
For more news from Indiana, click here.