More Than Gifts

It began with gifts. Mary Kay Beard, an ex-prisoner working with PF US, conceived of the Angel Tree® programme when she remembered how her fellow inmates would wrap soap and shampoo bottles to give to their children at Christmas because they didn’t have the money to buy them gifts. The programme in which PF volunteers purchase gifts and deliver them to prisoners’ children on their parents’ behalf has taken off worldwide since it began in 1982.  The toys and clothes delight the children, but the true gift of Angel Tree® has always been the way it strengthens and renews the fragile bond between child and incarcerated parent.

A prisoner who was released last summer recounted to a PF England and Wales representative that his 5-year-old daughter greeted him at the door clutching the gift card she had received from him with her Angel Tree® present. She had kept it all that time. It was her connection to him.

In the years since Mary Kay Beard created Angel Tree®, it has expanded to become much more than merely a gift programme. Prison Fellowship ministries around the world have customized the programme to further serve the children who become secondary victims of their parents’ offenses.

Angel Tree® parties held within prison grounds have become a popular way to provide inmates the rare chance to celebrate the holiday with their families. PF Suriname hosts Christmas Angel Tree® parties in the country’s three largest prisons. Volunteers transform the dreary prison cafeteria with festive decorations while caregivers and family members bring the prisoners’ children for a day of food, fun, and gifts.  The experience of celebrating Christmas with a usually absent father is irreplaceable. Volunteers have even witnessed many reconciliations during these parties between inmates and their families.

PF Solomon Islands also holds an Angel Tree® party every year for prisoners and their children. More than 100 children and their mothers or caregivers attended last year’s party, which is organized by PF in conjunction with Correctional Services of Solomon Islands. Inmates prepare the meals served at the parties as a way of offering love and care for their families. Last year, Solomon Islands’ Deputy Prime Minister spoke at the event, urging the inmates to be “strong and remain hopeful” during their incarceration.

In Trinidad and Tobago, these Christmastime Angel Tree® parties are even more special to the families because prison rules normally prohibit children from visiting their incarcerated parents. PF Trinidad and Tobago has secured exceptions to this rule twice a year – on Mother’s Day and Christmas. The Angel Tree® party is particularly poignant as mothers hug their little children knowing they can only see them twice a year. Last year one inmate sat combing her daughter’s hair while tearfully saying how thankful she was for the “little couple of hours that I am getting to see my daughters. It is one in a million.” The goodbyes at the end of the party are always painful as the mothers and children must make do with letters and phone calls until spring.

More than 100 PF ministries worldwide participate in the Christmas Angel Tree® programme, bringing gifts and messages of love from incarcerated parents to their children, bridging the gap of incarceration and forging essential parental bonds. Fortunately, PF ministries support prisoners’ children throughout the year with events including camps and back-to-school programmes. A few years ago, PF Australia expanded the Angel Tree® programme by introducing a Happy Birthday campaign, which helps prisoners send birthday gifts and greetings to their children.

Last year PF England and Wales responded to several requests from young inmates and initiated a Mother’s Day Angel Tree® campaign. They provided cards for prisoners to write notes to their mothers, and PF volunteers delivered the cards with a small box of chocolates. Forty-eight percent of the men in Aylesbury Prison participated in the new programme. “The messages in the cards, written by the young men to their mothers, were very moving and tugged at the heart strings,” noted Malcolm Hunter, a chaplain at the prison.

Strong family bonds are not only important for improving a prisoner’s chance at not reoffending once released; they can also help prevent prisoners’ children from following their parents into a life a crime. But you need only attend a PF Angel Tree® party to see that the benefits of the programme are not just in the future—the tears, the smiles, the hugs, and the laughs indicate that these events are cherished by the children and their parents. Even if just for a short time, they can be a family celebrating Christmas together.