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| Indiana Prison Workers Chip in for Local Charities |
| By Anderson Herald Bulletin |
| Published: 01/03/2003 |
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Prison employees do have hearts, a fact they don't feel is widely known. 'There are a lot of good things that go on in here all the time that people don't know about,' said staff benefits coordinator Jill Holland. For the second year in a row, employees at the Correctional Industrial Facility in Pendleton looked inside their hearts and dug into their pockets to try and give a few less fortunate families and children a brighter holiday. Approximately 315 pounds of food were donated to Operation Love and 300 more pounds of food were donated to Bread from the Lighthouse, a Second Harvest food pantry in Huntsville, Holland said. Correctional Industrial Facility is the minimum/maximum security prison, one of three correctional facilities in Pendleton. Its prisoners process meat and package foods for all three facilities. But each building has its own administrative staff. The drives began in mid-November, but Holland said the giving tradition started last year when a group of employees got together and decided to give back to the community. This year they contributed to a few different charities and food pantries. 'Jill was really the inside track on contacting the local agencies,' said administrative assistant Jennifer French. Holland said she got the idea to donate to Operation Love from a friend. But other employees gave their input as well. 'We all just kind of put our heads together,' Holland said, who called around this year to different charities, especially food pantries, which have low caches this year. She called as many places as the facility could handle and then asked employees to donate. The group is donating to Salvation Army's Giving Tree, Operation Love, Riley Hospital for Children and various food pantries. Inmates conduct their own charity drives, so these were open to building employees only. 'Tons and tons of memos' went out to the 500-person staff, Holland said, to spur generosity. The more memos went out, the more donations were received. 'People were just great,' Holland said. Giving was pretty evenly distributed among departments. Many brought food, clothing or toys, some focused on giving to individual families or children. Some of the nurses adopted a family of six and bought lots of presents for them, Holland said. 'It's just hard to believe that people are so generous in such hard times,' Holland said. Employees donated gifts of all descriptions. 'You name it, it was donated,' Holland said of the clothes, electronics, dolls, stuffed animals, trucks, etc. Some even went above and beyond, saying they couldn't stop buying. As of Monday, the food and toy boxes were overflowing, French said. Some people will get to meet the families to whom they donated gifts when they're distributed this week. French said the degree of people's needs was not surprising, considering today's economic times. But she said it made people appreciative of what they have. 'We're not an elite group,' French said. 'But it has allowed people to reflect that even though they don't have a big paycheck, they have a paycheck. No matter how bad you think it is, look around, it's worse.' |
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