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Sheriff’s inmate work crews help out at Rutland’s Treasure Valley

Sheriff’s inmate work crews help out at Rutland’s Treasure Valley

Worcester County Sheriff Lew Evangelidis, Friends of Treasure Valley Volunteer Wayne Mallquist of Holden & WCSO Officer Michael Mastrorio along with inmates in the Sheriff's Community Service Program assembly tents at Treasure Valley Scout Reservation in Rutland. The inmates recently provided labor to ready the campsites in anticipation of thousands of Boy Scouts who will be camping at the reservation during the summer months. Submitted photo

Worcester County Sheriff Lew Evangelidis, Friends of Treasure Valley Volunteer Wayne Mallquist of Holden & WCSO OfficerMichael Mastrorio along with inmates in the Sheriff’sCommunity Service Program assembly tents at Treasure Valley Scout Reservation in Rutland. The inmates recently provided labor to ready the campsites in anticipation of thousands of Boy Scouts who will be camping at the reservation during the summer months. Submitted photoWorcester County Sheriff Lew Evangelidis has been providing inmate work crews to assist budget strapped cities and towns all over Worcester County. The Sheriff ’s Inmate Community Service Program provides cost free labor to municipalities and nonprofit organizations by non-violent, non-sex offender individuals who have earned a place in the program and under Sheriff Evangelidis the inmate work crews have been very hard at work.

Since taking office in January of 2011, Evangelidis has more than tripled the size of the Inmate Community Service Program providing Worcester County communities with an impressive six million dollars in savings with over 1,000 work projects completed. Another plus from the Sheriff ’s expanded program, inmates benefit as well by learning job skills and a sense of self worth and dignity that comes from a productive day’s work while the recipients, hundreds of local non-profit organizations and municipalities from throughout the county have had projects completed by the inmate work crews that they could not have afforded otherwise.

Most recently, the Sheriff ’s inmate work program spent the week assisting Rutland’s Treasure Valley Scout Reservation installing docks, preparing campsites and setting up hundreds of tents in anticipation of the thousands of Boy Scouts and Webelos who will camp at the scout reservation during the summer months. Under Evangelidis, the inmate work program has provided $60,000 in savings in labor and maintenance costs for Treasure Valley.

“As usual they did a great job, the campsites look great,” said Friends of Treasure Valley Volunteer Wayne Mallquist of Holden. “There was a lot of work to do here in preparation of the thousands of Boy Scouts and Webelos who camp here all summer long. Having the inmate labor saves us an extraordinary amount of time, manpower and money and we can not thank the Sheriff enough for helping us out each year,” said Mallquist.

“In addition to our primary responsibility of public safety, our department is also proud to serve as a resource for Worcester County cities and towns. Through our inmate community service program, we not only save millions of dollars for our local communities but promote the idea that the inmates who work in this program, they are people trying to turn their lives around,” said the Sheriff. “These individuals have earned their way into this program, are giving back and the community benefits as well. With thousands of projects already completed county-wide, this week we were happy to help out the Boy Scouts & Rutland’s Treasure Valley. It’s a true win-win program.”