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| Louisiana Prisoners Raise $11,000 for Relief Efforts |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 10/01/2001 |
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Horrified by last week's deadly attacks on New York and Washington, patriotism soared at Louisiana's toughest maximum-security prison where inmates have raised more than $11,000 for Red Cross relief efforts. 'These are men who make 4 cents to 20 cents an hour working in the fields and at other prison industries. So far they've donated $11,060, and these folks are poor,' Louisiana State Prison Warden Burl Cain told Reuters recently. 'We've seen a patriotism we never knew was there.' Inmate organizations, such as Vietnam War Veterans and Toastmasters, have chipped in with money raised from operating concessions at the annual four-day prison rodeo in October. The money normally is used for projects at the sprawling 18,000-acre prison complex in Angola, Louisiana. The groups also pledged to donate from this year's rodeo proceeds. Other inmates who are permitted to sell hobby and craft items they have made added their funds to relief efforts, too, Cain said. 'But the ones who really got to me are the guys with no money at all,' he said. 'They wanted to help too, so a lot of them pledged the $5 a year the state gives them at Christmas to buy cookies and stuff. That touched us all.' When prisoners first saw the destruction on television, they wanted to go fight or give blood or something, he said. But state law prohibits blood donations because so many prisoners are considered high risks for blood-borne diseases such as Hepatitis C and AIDS. |
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