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| Providing gifts for children of inmates |
| By The Philadelphia Inquirer |
| Published: 12/21/2000 |
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p>This year, thousands of paper angels grace Christmas trees in churches, schools and malls across the country, each representing a gift promised to a child who has a parent in prison. The angels are hung by volunteers for Angel Tree, the only national program to reach out to children of incarcerated parents. Since its inception in 1982, Angel Tree has delivered millions of Christmas gifts nationwide - more than 480,000 last year. 'We served 6,000 children in the city of Philadelphia this year and 20,000 in the state of Pennsylvania,' said Barry Winter, Pennsylvania director of Prison Fellowship Ministries, which runs Angel Tree. Prison Fellowship was founded in 1976 by Watergate felon and born-again Christian Charles Colson. It offers counseling and mentoring to prisoners, ex-inmates and their families, as well as to victims of crime. Prison Fellowship is one of the cosponsors of Evergreen Youth Ministries, a Philadelphia initiative due to start next month. Evergreen will provide children of prisoners with mentors, along the lines of Big Brothers-Big Sisters. Angel Tree's work starts well before Christmas. Over the summer, Prison Fellowship field offices provide prisoners with gift application forms through prison chaplains. Once prisoners have signed on, volunteers contact the children's caregivers for gift wishes for one toy and one item of clothing. Family members and community volunteers purchase and wrap the gifts. It is too late for Angel Tree volunteers to sign up in the area, but Prison Fellowship spokeswoman Krista Obitts said 70,000 pledges were still unclaimed nationwide. Those interested can reach the Web site at http://www.angeltree.org/, or call 1-800-398-4673. |
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The Philadelphia Inquirer has always introduced us with some really exciting contents, I have to get some engraved frame for gifts for children of inmates to support them, Can't wait for more contents for the share.