Nonprofits Knit Former Inmates Back into Fabric of Communities

ASHLAND, Ore. — At the Ashland Tuesday Farmers Market, a hot September wind slaps the blue canopy over the Freedom Farms stand. Here, with support from Oregon Community Foundation and its donors, formerly incarcerated people sell fragrant basil, golden squash and other vegetables as a way to help rebuild their lives.

Market customers often wrongly assume that Freedom Farms’ Executive Director, Sean O Ceallaigh, is the former inmate, with his bushy beard and hair that sticks out under a farm-dirty hat. But it’s Lindsey McNab — in black leggings and ankle boots, her hair in a neat bun — who was released from state prison less than a year ago.

"Most people are really shocked to find out I was incarcerated. They’ll ask, ‘what weeks are those people here?’” McNab said. “But it doesn’t matter what else you've done – your past, your education before you went in. When you come out, you’re sidelined in the community. The barriers are there for everyone who steps outside that door.”

Herbs and vegetables grown at Freedom Farms in Gold Hill. Photo credit: Shelby Oppel Wood

McNab trades recipes for Italian heirloom tomatoes with a woman in yoga pants. After she thanks a ballcapped boy for purchasing cucumbers, he shrugs and flashes a small smile. For her and other Freedom Farmers, this simple market stand is an on-ramp back into regular life — a weekly opportunity to become visible again, for the right reasons this time.

“This is a population that has been banished from society. Being here is a way to make them seen, so others will know, ‘These people are just like me; they’re humans,’” O Ceallaigh said.  “After the experience of being behind bars, to just have a regular experience of positive human interaction, it does something for you.” 

Community consequences

Along with Freedom Farms, three other prison reentry organizations received OCF Community Grants this year: Titus 3 House in Polk County in the Willamette Valley, Changing Patterns in Bend, and Golden Rule Reentry in Medford.

“Community Grants allow OCF to be on the front lines with our nonprofit partners. They are designed to be responsive to the needs that our partners are seeing – including the need to support people who have been incarcerated and help them reintegrate into society,” said Amy Drake, OCF Program Officer for Southern Oregon.

 In Oregon, more than 12,000 people are housed in 12 state prisons. Each year, about 3,800 are released back into Oregon communities, according to the Department of Corrections. That number doesn’t include people released from the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon or the thousands of adults who depart county jails in Oregon each year after completing sentences shorter than 12 months.

The luckiest ones emerge to families and friends who offer housing, connect them to jobs, and help them get to can’t-miss meetings with parole officers or for drug treatment. Some find help through government-run transition programs. Yet many people exit prison alone, with no prospects or even a place to live.

It’s a set-up for failure with community-wide consequences.

More than half of people (51.2%) released from state prison are arrested for a new crime within three years, state figures show. Prison reentry organizations can make the difference between someone successfully reentering society — or increasing a city's homeless population, restarting drug use, returning to prison, or all the above.

Growing on the farm

As a child in rural Ireland, O Ceallaigh (sounds like “O’Kelly”) and his family grew most of their food. In his 30s, he taught tai chi to inmates at California’s San Quentin state prison. Moved by their capacity to change long-held, destructive patterns, he wondered how they would fare after they got out. He began to imagine a farm that would help the men continue to grow into better people, while providing job skills and help finding employers willing to hire them.

At left, Lindsey McNab harvests vegetables at Fredom Farms in Gold Hill. Photo credit: Shelby Oppel Wood.

The result is Freedom Farms, which occupies an otherwise fir-covered slope high above the Rogue River, in the tiny town of Gold Hill north of Medford. Up to 15 people at a time — mostly men, plus a few women and older teens — spend 12 hours a week tending to thick rows of chard, kale, asparagus, peppers and other crops, then selling their harvest at local markets.

“Being out here takes people out of the city, away from their triggers,” said O Ceallaigh, 51. “They get to just be in their bodies, working hard, working the land. It just makes you feel better.”

Each day begins with a group meditation. As O Ceallaigh and guest instructors work alongside participants to clear weeds from a pond or cut fire lines through the woods, they talk about the value of empathy and how to work as a team. They model how to manage difficult emotions like anger or grief, instead of being controlled by them, so they can make choices that don’t harm themselves or others.

Since O Ceallaigh started Freedom Farms in 2023, he has helped participants land part-time jobs at nurseries and restaurants, on a forestry crew, and with neighbors in need of landscaping help. No one who has stayed for more than a few weeks has returned to prison, he said.

"I gained a lot of maturity. I grew a lot. I learned boundaries. I fell in love with nature. You fall in love with nature, you fall in love with everything,” said Karlis Williams, who met O Ceallaigh through a prison pen-pal program while serving time in an Arkansas state prison.

O Ceallaigh raised money to bring Williams to Gold Hill after his release, where Williams ate kale and saw deer for the first time and became a popular fixture at the Ashland market. A former gang member convicted of multiple felonies including armed robbery, Williams was in and out of confinement for nearly his entire adult life, he said. Today, at age 51, he’s been out for seven years and works as a contractor on bath and kitchen remodels.

Leaving prison “is very scary. The mindset is: What do I do next?” Williams said. “The temptation to go back to what you know is so big.” Freedom Farms “is helping guys like me wake up to humanity, instead of believing that all they know is all they will ever do.”

Order from chaos

Some participants have violent backgrounds, but O Ceallaigh does not enroll sex offenders. He typically finds candidates through job fairs inside state prisons; other prison reentry groups or parole officers; homeless shelters; and Jackson County’s diversion program, which allows some offenders to choose Freedom Farms over jail. No one is forced to attend.

Support from OCF, including a grant from the OCF Walker Fund, Reed and Carolee Walker Fund of OCF, and other foundations enable O Ceallaigh to pay participants $300 weekly stipends, so they can afford to spend part of their days at the farm and still pay their rent.

“Many people have never done any farming or even spent time in nature. That money is incentive for them to step into a new experience. Without grant funding, we don’t have a program,” he said.

Most people who pass through Freedom Farms have abused drugs or alcohol. Some still battle addiction. Everyone must be sober at work and can be tested for drugs and alcohol before their four-hour shifts, O Ceallaigh said.

Lindsey McNab holds an Italian heirloom tomato grown at Freedom Farms in Gold Hill. Photo credit: Shelby Oppel Wood.

McNab, from the farmers market, has never struggled with drugs and is an outlier at Freedom Farms in other ways. She’s a college graduate with a master’s degree in religious studies. In her 20s, she taught yoga and owned a farm in Missouri with her husband, where they were raising a family.

Then, in 2023, she was involved in a dispute over her stepdaughter and took the child across state lines in violation of a custody agreement — a felony. She was sentenced to four years in state prison in Missouri, then released after 16 months and allowed to move to Oregon, to live with relatives in Ashland.

When not at the market, McNab teaches women from the court diversion program how to plant fruit trees, writes grant applications to support Freedom Farms, and speaks to local groups like the Medford Rotary Club. In Gold Hill, she said, her favorite task is weeding, because “it’s about making order out of chaos,” she said.

“Before you don’t have freedom, you don’t give a second thought to it. Then, up until the moment you walk out, you’re worried you won’t ever get out. It’s like starting life from scratch in a lot of ways," McNab said. "And that is beautiful and difficult.”

What you can do:

• Learn more about OCF Community Grants, which respond to and reflect the most pressing needs in Oregon communities.
• If you have a donor advised fund and would like to support prison reentry organizations in Oregon, please contact your donor relations officer.
• If you’re new to OCF, our philanthropic advisors can help you make the most of your giving.