Cover Story

By Trudy Helmsing

Lagniappe staff

While, serving her third term in prison, Deborah Daniels had reached her absolute point of despair; she felt dead inside. As someone who started drinking before she was 10 years old and was smoking pot at the age of 12, Daniels, now in her thirties, had seen it all. Before being arrested for theft, she was up to a $1,000-a-day crack addiction.

She left behind everything. Her four kids, all from different men none of whom were still in the picture, lived with her mom. Her youngest child was even born in prison and immediately given to his grandmother. The relationships she shared with her kids were rocky at best as both sides struggled with the separation.

The first Christmas Daniels spent in prison she was unable to send anything to her four kids. After hearing the hurt in their voices when she called home the day after Christmas, she had to make a change. Every Christmas after that, she signed them up for the Prison Fellowship Angel Tree Program, a nationwide effort that reaches out exclusively to children who have one or both parents behind bars.

“It kind of bridged that gap when I called home for Christmas,” she said. “I felt like I was a part of their Christmas again.”

The Fellowship program, which now exists in all 50 states, was actually started in Alabama by former inmate Mary Kay Beard. While she was serving time in Julia Tutwiler prison, Beard noticed that every Christmas a lot of the women she was in prison with were sending their children toothbrushes, soap and shampoo that they had received from charity groups.

According to the Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents, children who have a parent in prison are six times more likely to be incarcerated than their peers. Beard’s philosophy behind the Angel Tree program is that the cycle of crime can be broken by making sure these children aren’t forgotten, especially around the holidays.

After Daniels was released from jail for the third time, she was determined to bring her family back together and to turn their lives around. While she was in prison, she had had a life-changing experience with the Prison Fellowship Ministry in which she had pledged to commit to the Lord.

Her kids, however, were not quite there yet. While she was in prison, they had been living with her mom, who, according to Daniels, was getting too old to discipline.

Her oldest daughter, then a teenager, was spending more and more time on the streets, just like her mom was doing at her age. Daniels didn’t want to see her mistakes repeated.

“We had to mandate that she go with my sister and her husband, in a healthy family structure,” she said. Now, she has graduated from Georgia State University and has her own business.

Because the volunteers for the PF Angel Tree deliver the gifts themselves, the experience is a very personal one, as new relationships are formed between the givers and recipients.

One Christmas, Daniels actually got to experience firsthand the delivery of the presents. She was out on a weekend pass when the Angel Tree volunteers brought the gifts to her house.

“We all sat in the living room around the Christmas tree. The volunteers had brought their kids too, so it wasn’t just adults. They all went outside to play and throw around a football,” she said. “That was a beautiful, beautiful remembrance for me.”

‘Wish I could be there’

John Eads, Volunteer Coordinator for Volunteers of America Southeast, has been working with the PF Angel Tree Program for 11 years. In 1997, there were only about 700 kids in Mobile, Washington and Clarke counties being helped. Today, that number has risen to 1,200. This year, every child was taken care of and will have gifts for Christmas.

Inmates can sign their kids up for the Fellowship program by filling out a form with the child’s information, including what they would like for them to receive for Christmas. At the bottom of the form is a space for them to write a message. According to Eads, the messages are usually along the lines of “I’m sorry” and “Wish I could be there.”

“They are basically telling them not to end up like I did,” Eads said, adding that no matter what crime the parent has committed, it is not the child’s fault.

“The Fellowship program is not about the inmate, it’s about the kid,” he said.

Because the prisoners have the option to say what they want their kids to receive for Christmas, the gifts can be even more personalized.

“It wasn’t just a generic gift my kids were receiving. It was something they actually had on their list,” Daniels said.

To make the program work, it really takes a whole community.

“You have somebody who’s gonna buy the gifts, somebody who’s gonna wrap them and then somebody who’s gonna deliver them,” Eads said. “It really does capture the whole Christmas message.”

He added that it is much more work doing it this way, but is definitely worth it in the end. Volunteers for the PF Angel Tree also have the choice of what they want to do to help out. If all they want to do is buy the gifts, then they can take them to any of the several locations around Mobile that sponsor the Angel Tree. Then, they will get sorted out and grouped together by zip code to make it easier for the volunteers who will deliver them.

The ideal situation for the Angel Tree program is for one family to adopt another. When they go to deliver the gifts, it is an opportunity for both the parents and the children to meet somebody they might never have had the opportunity to meet.

Eads gave one such example, of one family that had adopted another family. When they went to deliver the gifts, both sets of kids started to play with one another. The one family didn’t have a Christmas tree, and before long, all the kids were piling in the SUV and went together to pick out a tree.

“It really brings a group of people together who would have never ever come together before,” Eads said.

The actual delivering of the gifts helps to bring the community together, as well. It of course helps out the children’s caregiver, but also unites the neighbors, especially in an apartment complex or housing project.

“It’s interesting to see how excited and welcoming the people are,” Eads said.

Because the inmates have to fill out the forms in August, oftentimes the kids have had to move by the time Christmas came around. In several instances, however, their neighbors helped Eads and his wife to find out where the children were living now.

One extra thing that Eads likes to do for the inmates is to get a picture of the kids and send it back to them in prison. This way they know that their kids actually received the gifts, but it also serves as something they can show off to people. And, for some of the prisoners, who haven’t seen their kids in a while, it can show that them how they’re doing without their parent at home.

One particular time when he was delivering the gifts really stood out to Eads. When he went to the house, the inmate had actually just been released and was the one who answered the door.

“Of all the smiles we’ve gotten, I think that was the biggest one.”

Of course, there are experiences that are on the other end of the spectrum. When Eads and his wife went to deliver the gifts, he discovered all the children had recently died in a trailer fire. However, the one good thing was that he was able to tell their grandmother, who they had been living with, that her estranged son was thinking about the kids and still wanted to give them the best Christmas he could.

According to Eads, in a majority of cases, the father is the one in prison who is signing the kids up for the gifts.

“One time we thought we had found a big scam,” he said. “It turned out to be both the mom and dad were in prison and had both signed the kids up.”

It’s hard to be away from your family around the holidays, but knowing that they care and are thinking about you, can make all the difference.

“The whole thing is surrounded by sadness,” he said. “But, it just brings so many different people together really around the center of tragedy.”

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