Prison Bake programme a recipe for warm fuzzies
Tough times don’t discriminate, but kindness is a language some haven’t had the opportunity to learn.
That’s the premise behind Prison Bake: a programme the Good Bitches Baking volunteers are rolling out.
Through baking classes in prison kitchens, prisoners learn the value of kindness and build a connection with the community while learning transferable skills.
Good Bitches Baking (GBB) general manager Katy Rowden said: “It’s often the really small things that have a big impact.”
That’s how GBB got started. Founders Nicole Murray and Marie Fitzpatrick were looking for a way to let people going through a hard time know that someone cared. “Sometimes someone’s tough time is so huge you don’t know what to do,” Rowden said, but baking was a practical way to show kindness.
GBB had since grown to 30 chapters, from Invercargill to Whangārei. While prisoners got to taste their creations, most of their baking went to the organisations too.
GBB volunteers guided prisoners through a different recipe each week.
But the skills they learned were a byproduct to the social benefits, Rowden said.
Many hadn’t had the opportunity to feel how good it felt to help someone else, she said, adding that volunteers had seen a growth in prisoners’ empathy.
Department of Corrections deputy national commissioner David Grigg said Prison Bake had proven popular in the prisons it had been offered in so far.
It was trialled at Rimutaka Prison in Upper Hutt and had since been offered at Christchurch Women’s Prison, Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison and Otago Corrections Facility.