VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Roughly 1.3 million meals each year are prepared in the Virginia Beach Correctional Center's Inmate Kitchen, yet it has not been upgraded since it opened 20 years ago. That all changed last month.

Ottis Smith, who is serving time at the correctional center, is set to be released soon. He said the recent $457,000 kitchen modernization will go a long way toward improving lives, like his, moving forward.

“It’s been nothing but a growing experience," Smith said.

Smith said he decided last year he was going to make a change. He applied for an in-house program that would give him food prep skills he could use once he is released.

“The training I’ve got was definitely a learning process, because, in this type of environment, you’ve got to display not only humility, but p

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