PHOTOS COURTESY BARNSTABLE COUNTY CORRECTIONAL FACILITY
BOURNE – A group of inmates from the Barnstable County Correctional Facility turned out to help a Bourne parish with needed repairs on their mission house.
In the photo at right, four of five inmates from a crew dispatched by Barnstable County Sheriff James Cummings are busy re-roofing a mission house on the grounds of the First Baptist Church of Bourne, located in the village of Pocasset.
Up by the chimney are, from left, Kevin Wordell and David Kimball, while handling work closer to the gutter are Jade Wayman and Darryl Jackson.
These inmates handled re-shingling and trim work while an earlier crew visit took care of most of the gutting and demolition at the building site.
Inmate labor on this part of the project came to $5,500,using a calculation known as the independent sector value of volunteer labor, which calculates labor at $27.43 per hour.
“This is awesome,” said volunteer parishioner Amy Leech of the inmate labor provided to the parish. “We’re really blessed. This renovation job would have taken years to accomplish without inmate help. With them, we hope to finish in the not-too-distant future.”
Meanwhile, in the photo at right, a fifth crew member breaks apart an old chest of drawers that was left behind by house’s last occupant. It’s about to be tossed into a nearby dumpster.
Other work on the one-story, five-room home will be completed in stages, so a return by sheriff’s inmates is almost certain.
Across the street is Bourne’s Barlow Landing Road fire station. Inmates have also done major renovations there in recent months.
While other Cape Cod communities “share in the wealth” of the labor program, Bourne leads the way most years because of its agreement to take on the Barnstable County Correctional Facility. Siting and construction of that was completed more than a decade ago – without inmate labor.
