Garden in abandoned baby's name brings hope to women in DuPage County jail

The garden built at the DuPage County jail to memorialize an abandoned baby found dead in a backpack in 2016 is bringing hope to female inmates who tend to it.

The DuPage County sheriff's office has been working with several community groups planting and tending to a revamped Hope's Garden, a living memorial that honors Baby Hope and provides fresh food to local food pantries and flowers to victims of domestic violence.

Baby Hope was found dead in an unincorporated area near Wheaton, and police have been searching for her parents ever since. An unknown woman, identified only by her DNA profile, was indicted in 2019.

The garden was previously planted in 2016 and located at the Winfield Township Highway Department but was moved to a secure site early this month to allow inmates to be able to tend to it. The new, larger site will allow for more produce to be grown.

Inmate Diana Core didn't know the background behind Hope's Garden, but she said working on it "makes me feel like I'm doing something good, something important."

The new garden is in a former dog run on the north end of the sheriff's office campus and consists of raised garden pods, which are tended to by inmates three times a week for two to three hours a day. Currently, two of the 19 female inmates at the jail qualify for the program since participants must be nonviolent offenders.

The garden features 75 tomato and 75 pepper plants, as well as cucumber, zucchini and pumpkin plants, herbs and flowers. The garden is estimated to produce about 1,500 pounds of produce in the first year.

Inmate Mandi Powers said working in the garden is the first time she's been outside in her 10 months in custody.

"It feels great," she said. "It's beautiful out here," she said, calling it calming and serene.

"Gardening and tasks like this are very therapeutic, so it falls in to our holistic care model," Sheriff James Mendrick said. The horticulture class joins other programs, such as the janitorial service classes and welding training. "There's a lot of complexity to a project like this. It's not just gardening, and there's a lot for them to learn."

Powers said she's learned one thing for sure when she comes outside to the fresh air of the garden. "It feels like I took it for granted before," Powers said. "I won't do it again."