Insight Garden Program is now Land Together: A message from our Executive Director
Yes, it’s true. Insight Garden Program is now Land Together! The heart and soul of our organization will remain the same, but we now have a new name, logo, and website better aligned with our growth over the last 22 years.
You may be wondering “Why change a name with so much history?”
Our primary motivation was that when people hear or see “Insight Garden Program”, they make the reasonable assumption that we are a single garden program, as opposed to a statewide organization with multi-faceted programming in nine prisons and holistic reentry services in southern, central, and northern California.
Our prison garden programs are the roots of, and inspiration for, everything we’ve grown since our first flower garden at San Quentin more than 20 years ago. At this point, however, we are so much more than the name Insight Garden Program describes. Our new name, Land Together, speaks to our foundational commitment to nurturing connections to each other and to the earth, but it also reflects our more expansive approach and aspirations. Land Together leaves plenty of room to grow.
Similarly, our new logo, a sage plant (a California native that we grow in all our prison gardens and our participants regularly use for its flavor, nutritional, and medicinal benefits) with birds (blue, to represent the color of CA prison uniforms) in flight mimicking flowers growing from the leaves, represents our ongoing organizational commitment to nurturing connection, healing, growth, and freedom.
Land Together is a promise to our roots and a pledge to our vision for change.
In 2002, IGP’s founder Beth Waitkus, a life-long nature lover, environmentalist, and social justice activist, began volunteering at San Quentin and worked with incarcerated individuals there to design and plant the first Insight Garden. Since then, we have expanded to include:
Vibrant gardens at 9 California state prisons, co-designed and maintained by participants, that utilize innovative permaculture techniques and serve as restorative sanctuaries, dynamic living classrooms, and sources of fresh herbs and nutritious fruits and vegetables.
Year-round in-prison programming that utilizes an “inner” and “outer” gardening approach blending eco-therapy, creative expression, environmental stewardship, social-emotional development, mindfulness education, and hands-on vocational training in permaculture gardening and landscape design.
Holistic reentry support that includes gate pickups, linkages to housing and services, peer support and community building, restorative nature excursions, one-on-one coaching, financial literacy training, connections to higher education, and green workforce training and employment opportunities.
Diverse movement building initiatives, including cofounding Transformative Programming Works, a coalition of formerly incarcerated leaders and 96 community organizations advocating for increased access to meaningful in-prison programs, divestment from punitive systems, and investment in community-based healing practices.
A burgeoning civic engagement and leadership development project that aims to build the capacity of people in prison and reentry to have a meaningful voice in government decision-making processes related to environmental justice issues that directly impact their lives.
Our hearts are filled with pride and gratitude for what we’ve accomplished over the last 22 years. And we are hopeful and excited about what we will achieve, together, in the decades to come. We are so grateful for your continued support in our shared mission. Without you, none of this powerful work would be possible.
Tending to the land and each other, inside and outside of prisons, we grow together, we land together, and together we rise.
In Community,
Andrew Winn
Land Together Executive Director
P.S. We know it takes time to adjust to big changes. Not to worry though - IGP email addresses and website/social media URLs will continue to get you to all the right people and places for many months to come.
