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Institution: The University of North Carolina General Alumni Association

Title of entry: A Fresh Start With Old Prisons

About this entry: For more than seven decades, the low-slung buildings and distinctive guard tower on 69 acres in Wagram comprised the Scotland Correctional Center. When the facility closed in 2001, the former workhouse might have been torn down. Noran Sanford ’91 had a different idea. He envisioned turning it into a community farm and cultural center to keep the area’s disadvantaged youth from heading down the path to prison and give hope for a new life to those who already had been there. It was a radical idea, but Sanford believed the change was not only possible but necessary for the area where he grew up.