Led by formerly incarcerated and system-impacted people, Land Together partners with individuals in prison and reentry to restore connections to self, community, and the natural world. We cultivate food gardens, offer ecotherapy, leadership development, and green-jobs vocational training inside California prisons; provide wraparound reentry services rooted in nature-based healing; and advance bold advocacy at the intersection of environmental and criminal justice. Together, we create spaces where people can heal, grow, and build a more just and sustainable world.
Annually, Land Together engages approximately 300 participants through our programs in 9 California prisons, and approximately 200 program graduates through our reentry programs.
Our in-prison programs utilize an “inner” and “outer” gardening approach that blends eco-literacy, eco-therapy, environmental stewardship, and mindfulness education with hands-on training in permaculture gardening and landscape design. We also carry out personal and professional life skills workshops on topics ranging from effective communication and conflict resolution to financial literacy and goal-setting. Diverse forms of creative expression are embedded throughout our curriculum as opportunities for self reflection, healing and cultural empowerment.
Each of our sites includes vibrant gardens that are co-designed and maintained by participants. Utilizing innovative permaculture, composting, and water conservation techniques, our gardens become thriving ecosystems, restorative sanctuaries, dynamic living classrooms, and sources of fresh herbs and nutritious fruits and vegetables.
Due to our persistent advocacy and relationship-building over many years, participants at all our sites are now able to consume what they grow and, at multiple sites, the larger incarcerated population has access to produce. This historic progress was hard-won. When we planted our first garden more than 20 years ago, our participants were not even allowed to plant anything edible, not to mention eat it. We continue to utilize our tried and tested combination of advocacy and relationship cultivation to expand access to the nutrient-dense foods grown in our prison gardens.
In late 2024, LT launched the nation’s first farmers market inside of a prison. The market was at CCWF, the largest women’s prison in the U.S., and included both produce grown in LT prison gardens and produce donated by local growers. LT has organized multiple prison farmers market since the launch of the initiative, each won providing fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs along with nutrition education and cooking demos, to hundreds of incarcerated people.
To address the complex needs of each of our participants, and ensure continuity of care upon release, we integrate reentry education into our year-long in-prison curriculum and provide six months of personalized pre-release support.
Pre-release reentry services include individualized coaching and case management, referrals for housing, workplace readiness training, and coordination with family and love ones. Day one release services include gate pickups, shopping for essentials, a compassionate ride home, and a warm meal. Reentry services, once in the community, include one-on-one coaching, linkages to essential services, rental assistance, connection to higher education, employment referrals, financial education, healing circles and emotional support, rapid response funding, restorative nature excursions, peer mentorship, and more.
LTs services and supportive communities transform lives, end ongoing cycles of incarceration, and create safer communities. According to an independent study completed by the Fresno State Criminology Department in 2024, compared to California’s 39% recidivism rate, just 2.3% of LT graduates return to prison after three years.