The scent of cinnamon wafted through the air of the kitchen at York County Jail in Alfred, as vast trays of coffee cake baked in the ovens. This was just one part of the meal preparation for jail residents.

What made this September weekday morning different was that News Center Maine meteorologist Aaron Myler – along with a camera crew – was on hand to help food service staff and volunteer trustee residents make the coffee cake and top it with the signature cinnamon sugar mixture. Other breakfast components included scrambled eggs, oatmeal and hash browns, which were eventually dished out and served to 240 plus jail residents. The day starts with breakfast preparations, which begins at 4:30 a.m., and meals are served three times a day, seven days a week..

Myler and company were filming “Myler Makes It,” an occasional segment that looks at food made in Maine and much more.

“It’s a series in which I learn how to bake, create or try a new skill from the masters of their craft,” said Myler. “We’ve done everything from cooking at the best restaurants to baseball with the Sea Dogs, and now I’m baking with these residents. … I try to keep up with them, which doesn’t always happen.”

Myler’s jail piece notes that the trustee residents are building skills for the future.

The kitchen is operated by staff employed by Aramark Correctional Services, with help from about 13 trustee inmates split between morning and afternoon shifts, building skills for when they leave the facility. Sentenced trustee workers earn “good time” of 1 ½ days off their sentence for each 48 hours they spend in the kitchen; those who are pretrial or awaiting sentencing earn commissary credits.

Myler said he enjoys filming “Making it with Myler,” and found the jail kitchen program interesting.

“It’s helping people get off on the right foot,” he said of the trustee volunteers who work in the kitchen, many of them enrolled in Aramark’s IN2WORK program, which provides instruction and more.

“They’re prepared for work on the outside,” he said.

Indeed, later that day, five of the kitchen trustees graduated from the IN2WORK program, earning a managerial ServSafe certificate, issued by the National Restaurant Association.

Sheriff William King pointed out that both the jail and the volunteers benefit from their work in the kitchen: the jail saves by employing fewer kitchen workers and the trustees earn skills that help them prepare for work on the outside.

“This is a good program,” said King, “and we’re glad Aaron Myler was here to help us highlight it.”

The York County Jail kitchen program piece aired Friday morning, Oct. 11; for those who missed it, the video appears on the News Center Maine website under the “Myler Makes It” section.

Tammy Wells is a media specialist for York County government.