Cultivating Dreams

 Cultivating Dreams is a student-run nonprofit organization that oversees an organic garden inside the California Institution for Women (CIW), a prison in Corona, CA. The garden is maintained through the collective effort of the women inside and volunteers from the Claremont College community. The fruits and vegetables grown in the garden are sent in the prison’s main kitchen or intensive care unit. Cultivating Dreams could not function without the support of the prison staff and warden of CIW.

Cultivating Dreams Objectives:

-Connect communities by uniting women with different life experiences and breaking down social boundaries

-Create a therapeutic and restorative space within the prison

-Offer an education in gardening, nutrition, and environmentalism through year round conversation as well as bi-weekly winter educational workshops and lectures

-Give the women in CIW access to fresh raw fruits and vegetables and information about nutrition and environmentalism

-Through gardening teach persistance, teamwork, and delayed gratification (which are important lessons for both CIW participants and student volunteers from the Claremont Colleges)

- Encourage student leadership, service, and sustainability