Noran Sanford

Growing change

Meet Noran Sanford, a 55 year old social worker in North Carolina who helps trouble kids stay out of jail by engaging them to 'flip' decomissioned prisons into sustainable farms and empowering them to create a space for second chances.

Noran grew up in an abusive, working class family in one of North Carolina’s most challenged rural areas. Despite his turbulent childhood, Noran developed a strong sense of justice and his dedication to community service won him a scholarship to university. Diagnosed with PTSD himself, Noran understood people’s pain from the inside out. Early in his career he was a passionate advocate for students with disabilities and campaigned for mental health parity laws in Virginia.

After 20 years 'in the trenches' as a youth social worker, Noran became disillusioned. Although he encouraged  kids to see themselves differently, without the opportunity to practice being different in the community, behavioural change was near impossible. A few years ago, at the funeral of a young patient who had returned to gang violence, Noran vowed to “never stand at a graveside asking myself if I could have done more.”

In 2011 Noran launched his program Growing Change with the radical idea of teaming up young people on probation with members of the local community to work together and transform a shuttered state prison into a sustainable farm. The pilot project was a group of kids, all under the age of 14 and on probation, who had been kicked out of home and school. Noran put these young people in charge of reclaiming a 67-acre prison compound, empowering them to practice being different and to heal their relationship with their local community.

At the end of its five-year trial, Growing Change had a 92% rate of preventing entry into the adult correctional system, a huge leap from the national average of 60%, and many of the kids went onto college, the military and other stable professions. Noran believes the act of reimagining abandoned prisons helps young people and communities flip their own metaphorical prisons and create a new narrative together.

Today, Noran’s vision extends to the 300 decommissioned prisons across America, and he’s created a free, open source, prison flip toolkit to help other communities begin the process of reclaiming closed prisons and to give youth a chance to begin again.

"Growing Change helps ignite the social entrepreneurial spirit of communities to transform these properties, and while we transform our youth, our youth  transform their communities.”