ORRINGTON – A new coat of paint, new roofs and other repairs at the Curran Homestead are breathing new life into an old farm, thanks in part to work put in by inmates at the Penobscot County Jail.

The turn-of-the-century Curran Homestead is being restored in the hopes of making it a working farm, a living museum of times past. But finding money to clean out decades’ worth of dust and dilapidation can be difficult, acknowledged the farm’s director and local historian Brian Higgins.

In stepped the inmate work program where low-risk inmates provide labor to local communities and cash-strapped nonprofit organizations. It has saved towns like Carmel and Orono thousands of dollars and has done the same for places such as Leonard’s Mills and for the Boy Scouts.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do it without them,” Higgins said at a press conference held at the Fields Pond Road farm to announce the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department had been awarded the Governor’s Service Award for the inmate work program.

Since its inception in 1985, the program has saved organizations and municipalities an estimated $500,000, including nearly $44,000 this year alone. At the Curran Homestead, jail inmates have contributed about $6,000 in labor, putting in flooring, roofing and siding to the building as well as painting sections of the farm.

Carmel Town Manager Tom Richmond said his town has saved $4,000 through the inmate program, which he has used for five weeks this year as well as four or five weekends. Inmates have helped restore the cemetery by filling in sunken graves and elsewhere cut brush from the side of the road and stained the outside of the municipal building. So impressed with the program is Richmond that he admits he’s a little concerned demand for it will be on the rise, making it more difficult for his town to take advantage of it next year.

Sheriff Glenn Ross said Friday that there is already a waiting list for the program and that they are limited largely in part by how many qualified low-risk inmates they can draw from.

At the press conference, Ross pointed out that there are other benefits to the program, besides cheap labor. The jail saves money because inmates get their sentences reduced, making more room in an already overcrowded situation where the costs for each inmate total more than $100 per day.

Taking a break from installing clapboards on the side of a shed, Charles Johnson, 23, who was sentenced to 120 days on drug charges, says that instead of being released on Jan. 8, 2003, he could get out as soon as the end of November. He has been working on other inmate details, including in Carmel and in addition to getting out early, he likes the idea of getting out in the fresh air and leaving behind the monotony of jail.

And working seven days a week is helping to instill a strong work ethic, Johnson said, as well as allowing him to pay back his debt to society.

“It feels good to be putting in what we may have taken out before we got in here,” Johnson said.