Meet Tarshire Battle of Roots 2 Empower, NESAWG’s 2021 Mutual Aid Award Recipient | NESAWG

Since 2018, NESAWG has given 25% of the funds we raise during our end of year appeal to a Northeast-based, BIPOC-led, equity-centered organization with a food systems program. We were very excited to present this award to Roots 2 Empower in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. We had a chance to sit down with founder Tarshire Battle and learn more about her organization and what brings her to this work. 

You can donate directly to Roots 2 Empower by sending a check (made out to ‘Roots 2 Empower’) to 209 Central Ave, Pawtucket, RI 02860.

NESAWG will be donating 25% of funds raised from the beginning of November until the end of 2021 to our 2022 Mutual Aid Award Recipient, who will be chosen in the summer of 2022. You can donate to NESAWG, and our 2022 Mutual Aid fund, here.

NESAWG: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you, what do you do and how did you end up doing it?

Tarshire Battle: My name is Tarshire Battle, and I wear many hats. I’m an herbalist, a master gardener, a mental health professional, and an artist. Those are some of the things that I do in the community. And what I do right now is I’m the founder of Roots 2 Empower, which is a small business and agriculture training program for formerly incarcerated people – I call them justice-involved individuals – and at risk youth in the Tri Cities – Central Falls, Pawtucket, and Providence, Rhode Island. 

And how I ended up doing the work that I do is based on personal experience. The story of my brother who served time in the 1990s for five years. He was incarcerated for a crime. He had been taking classes on construction at night. And when he got incarcerated, that was a blow to his education but, you know, it is what it is. He came out and was unable to find employment in the construction field. He wanted to change his life around and so with the help of myself, who co-signed for his first truck, and his wife, he was able to start his company, and it’s been thriving ever since, employing people and doing external and internal construction on houses and businesses in the Boston area and surrounding cities.

N: Do you consider people to be justice involved if they are no longer incarcerated?

TB: Yeah, so justice-involved to me means that a person could still be on probation and parole so that’s still justice-involved in a way, even though they’re not incarcerated. So that means there’s still a chance that they could be in violation for anything. So in that aspect, the criminal justice system still has oversight over them. But it could also be individuals that have completed their probation and parole but have a history of incarceration or some kind of involvement with law enforcement.

N: And what do you see as the central challenge facing justice-involved people?

TB: Well, in Rhode Island. It’s different compared to other states like Massachusetts, where I’m from originally. Down here there is this public portal where people, like an employer, can actually look you up.  I could look you up on this public portal and see if you’ve ever been arrested, without having to have you give permission. And then based on that information I find in the public portal I can chuck your resume. And you wouldn’t ever know, you would just never get a call back from me as an employer. And I think that is one of the barriers that is preventing people from down here in Rhode Island that have a criminal background from getting hired.

N: And is that legal, to discriminate against someone, because of their past criminal background?

TB: Of course it’s not! But they’re not gonna say that’s what they’re doing.  Right, they’re not gonna say, oh by the way…Nope! Just gonna chuck that before they even sit down with you and find out if you’ve changed or get your story.

N: So you could just look up everyone who applies for a job and just chuck the candidates who have a past history of incarceration, and just say, sorry you weren’t a good fit for the position 

TB: Right. They just won’t call them. And the lived experience I have with my brother is one example but my son is a second example. He also served time, down here in Rhode Island where my brother served time in Massachusetts. But he was unable to find employment and it just dawned on me why he may not have received any phone calls, even though he had taken classes, was that they were actually looking up his information in the public portal and didn’t hire him. So, for his case, when he applied for positions, he applied on the border of Massachusetts, and he was able to find employment there, for about five years in the same place. And actually doing pretty well. He has become an assistant manager.

N: So, in Massachusetts, they don’t have that public portal?

TB: No.

N: And probably there are certain companies or industries that perhaps even as a matter of course just look everyone up on the public portal. And then just toss out the resumes of people who have that history. 

TB: Exactly. Yeah, that’s basically one of the major barriers that I see here in Rhode Island. One good thing is there are some grassroots organizations in Rhode Island that advocated for legislation that got passed for second chances for justice-involved individuals for licensure. So what that means is if I was incarcerated and I was taking beautician or barber classes inside of prison, I would be able to get my license outside. Beforehand that wasn’t an option, if you were formerly incarcerated. So now that they passed that legislation that makes it a little bit better for people who are getting education in certain trades while incarcerated. Now they can actually get a licensure to pursue a career. It opens up possibilities for people to actually become self-employed in certain industries or to find employment in certain industries, with a criminal background. 

N: So what does Roots 2 Empower do to address these issues?

TB: Well, knowing that the barrier is that the public portal poses an issue for people to get employment, my approach is basically to help them start their own ventures. So I’m just using agriculture as the starting point for that. It doesn’t mean they have to go into agriculture, per se, they may decide they want to, but it’s just basically giving them a way for them to learn some skills, learn the business aspect of farming and apply that to whatever it is they want to do. So whether it’s a nonprofit that they want to go into or if it’s a for-profit, it’s just providing those skill sets. 

Another barrier justice-involved individuals have is all of these appointments and obligations they have to do in terms of probation and parole. Something our board and I have been thinking about is including social services to the program because they have a lot of stipulations around substance abuse, domestic violence and mental health. My background is in mental health so it makes sense to have a one stop shop so they don’t have to run all over the place to get these services, as well as doing community service hours. I’ve actually had people start doing community service. The social services aspect is something I’m thinking about incorporating.

N: So it’s not only a one stop shop it’s, to borrow from the medical field. continuity of care. You know some of their challenges and so you can help support them holistically in how they move forward. 

TB: Right, exactly. 

N: You talked about how you bring farm and food systems into your work. Can you say a little bit more about that?

TB: Well, one thing is that it’s healing. It’s a healing aspect of connecting back with the earth, it’s therapeutic in that way. But it’s also a way for them to see if that’s something they want to go into, in terms of being able to make a living, actually growing food that’s locally sourced in the area. One thing I see at Southside Community Land Trust, for example, is that they have programs for new and beginning farmers. They can make pretty good money during the growing season. So, maybe showing them that this may be a way you can actually provide for yourself.

You can grow your own food, provide for yourself, but also you may decide to make that into a product itself. So, connecting with other organizations that can provide SafeServ certification for them to go into food production might be another area that they might want to pursue.

N: How did you get into gardening and farming?

TB: I grew up in Boston and there was this program called ABCD, which is a big social services agency. It’s still thriving right now. And for the summer, I would apply to work in the garden. One year I worked in the garden that was located in Dorchester and then I worked at a farm another year, in Concord, Mass. That’s basically how I got into it. I wasn’t doing it regularly as when I was a child. But I find myself gravitating back towards it. As I got older and pursued going to master gardeners and herbalism,and connecting back with, I guess my roots.

N: What lessons have you learned along the way?

TB: As entrepreneurs it’s difficult work, so I just let them know nothing is going to be simple, with skills, that you’re going to still have to be persistent. If you want something to work. Staying the course as an entrepreneur, that is not easy work.

N: So tell me about a recent victory you’ve had in your work that you feel proud of.

TB: My recent victory is launching a success case. A young woman that has a history of incarceration, but also homelessness, started her nonprofit here in Rhode Island, called Gather Together United as One, working with the homeless population here in Providence and also Pawtucket. So that’s a victory. It shows that it can work and she’s the model as well. And most of the unhoused people that we encounter also are criminally justice-involved. I worked at the Department of Corrections (DOC) prior to this. I had been working there for three or four years, so a lot of my clients I saw there, I see on the streets as part of this organization. Which shows that the work that I needed to do had to be on the outside, it couldn’t be on the inside of the DOC.

N: I can imagine that working for the DOC must have been really challenging.

TB: Yeah, definitely a lot of bureaucracy. And they don’t want to change, they already have their processes in place and me coming along is not going to change something that’s embedded in the system. So, the work that needs to be done has to be done on the outside

N: Were you working as a mental health professional in the DOC?

TB: Yeah, I was a primary mental health discharge planner. Just one me, that was it for all the facilities for the entire DOC. And they wanted me to work a miracle and find housing that doesn’t exist.

N: So you supported this young woman in starting her nonprofit. What kind of programs do they have?

TB: Right now, as part of the programming we put up individuals in motels recently that were in an encampment in Providence. I am the grant writer and I got grant money. The city of Providence provided funds for relocation of 19 people that were at this Wilson Street encampment. Last year during the storm here we had in Rhode Island we put people up in motels, provided transportation, coordinated care with mental health providers, providing food, did clothing drives and giveaways, and networked with other grassroot homeless providers to collaborate to help the homeless in our cities.

There’s a lot of bureaucracy and fighting with big homeless organizations. Before I got here with you, I was on the phone with her about her frustrations as small organizations. We’ve been doing the work, right, she’s been housing people temporarily, but it doesn’t matter. And the fact of the matter is a big organization got all this funding and just took all the clients, and is taking credit for the work that she actually did. And this is the state that we live in. This is Rhode Island. Why are people fighting over homeless people? And I think that the bigger organizations see them as funding sources. And because they see them as funding sources, they’re not willing to let her as a grassroots organization get any funding or do what she’s supposed to do. It’s always a back and forth with these organizations down here.

N: Meanwhile, she has that lived experience and probably can build trust more easily with that community of folks. That’s really crappy. I’m so sorry that happened. 

TB: Yeah.

N: So you provided her some training and skills to help her get her organization off the ground?

TB: Yep.

N: What is your vision for Roots 2 Empower? Or another way to ask that question would be, where do you want the organization to be in five or ten years or whatever time horizon feels appropriate.

TB: I hope it would be a model for other states or, you know, or even regionally to follow in terms of how to address recidivism for justice-involved individuals. There are other programs out there, but some only address the entrepreneurship aspect, some only address the education aspect, but I want to be all inclusive, a one stop shop deal, because I know that they have to run around for so many obligations that are stipulated by the courts, that it makes it impossible for them to do anything. And this causes them to return, go back into the prison system.

N: Yeah, because they are going back to what they know works, even though the risks are greater. So this is hard work. Not only does it take up a lot of your time but I would imagine that it’s emotionally difficult as well. So what do you do to keep yourself going and keep your eyes on the prize?

TB: Well, knowing that I’m doing my part, knowing that at least I’m putting myself out there to address the issue in this state, and hoping that I can make a difference in somebody’s life to turn it around where they don’t have to return back to prison. I guess that’s rewarding enough but you know I’m also an artist, so I’m doing art. What I do is mixed media and I’m also a welder. I’m not a pro pro but I did win for an art sculpture to the Providence art club for a piece called A Badge of Honor. It was a mixed media welding sculpture where I found materials and just put it together, made it makes sense.

N: That’s so cool. Is there anything else you want people who read this blog post to know?

TB: Go to my website, check me out. And, donations are welcomed (you can donate here or checks can be made out to Roots 2 Empower and sent to 209 Central Ave, Pawtucket, RI 02860). But also especially if they’re in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, I’m looking for volunteers and board members with some certain skill sets to build up my board to propel me to move this organization forward in 2022.

You can reach out to Roots 2 Empower here.