Vocational Programs

Wood Shop

The wood shop provides hands-on training customized to benefit justice-involved individuals to prepare them to re-enter society. Program participants receive training, education, skillset, certification, and work experience they need to build a new career, change their lives, and give back to their local communities. 

Through a partnership with the Home Builders Institute (HBI), students earn certificates in building trades and carpentry. The training includes constructing a complete house from the foundation to roof indoors.

The woodshop is led by lifelong woodworker Lt. Sean Plummer since 2023. Plummer and his students construct Adirondack chairs and ottomans, side tables, bat houses, and birdhouses.  They make wooden vases, bowls, cribbage boards, and other creative pieces. Photographed below is a piggy bank fashioned after a motorcycle tank.

The Sheriff's Office donates some of the items made in the wood shop to government and nonprofit organizations upon request and depending on availability. For more information, contact the Wood Shop.   

Culinary Program

BCSO recently partnered with Cape Cod Community College to bring back the ServSafe and Basic Culinary Skills Certification Program. This course will be available to male and female students year-round on a rolling basis.

ServSafe is two four-hour classes. Upon completion of the course, the students take an exam and once they have passed they receive a certificate that is good for 5 years. Once they have received their Serv-Safe certificate, the students take a 8 session, hands-on culinary skills course where they learn food preparation techniques.

Baking 

As one of our dedicated volunteers, Erik Gura of the iconic Pie in the Sky Bakery & Café in Woods Hole teaches incarcerated individuals baking skills. As Erik said, “Food is a universal way to bring people together. There is high demand for professional bakers. The hours are long, the work is hard, but people think it’s magic.”