Project Holiday Volunteers Bring Prisoners Yule Gifts of Hope, Cheer

FRONTERA —  Clara Brown said she has been “feeling mighty low” these days, which could be expected of anyone spending the holidays in California’s only state penitentiary for women. She misses her family. She has six years and three months of a seven-year sentence to serve.

But on Christmas Day, when volunteers from the Holiday Project came to visit, Brown, who had been sitting quietly and intently hunched over in a chair in the chapel, straightened. Her expression softened, and a slow, steady smile spread across her “I’ve-seen-it-all” face.

Brown, 30, a Sacramento native, was grateful and slightly incredulous that someone took the time to spend Christmas Day with her and other inmates at California Institution for Women.

The volunteers, five women and two men, visited with about 60 prisoners--singing songs, talking to them, occasionally giving a hug.

Brown, who was convicted of conspiring to transport cocaine, said the volunteers’ presence offered a bit of evidence that some people on the outside haven’t written off those who have run afoul of the law.

“Lord, I been feeling mighty, mighty low. Like no one out there cares about us,” Brown told them. “If you all weren’t here right now, I would be in my room crying.” Instead of shedding tears alone on her cot, Brown joined the others in rousing renditions of Christmas tunes and spirituals.

The Holiday Project, with a chapter in Santa Ana, is a national, nonprofit organization that for the past 15 years has sent visitors into prisons, juvenile detention centers, hospitals and nursing homes on Christmas and Hanukkah. During the holidays last year, more than 30,000 volunteers across the country and in Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico made visits.

Don Rasmussen, public information officer at California Institution for Women, said the visits are very valuable to inmates. “A much higher percentage (of women inmates) are abandoned at Christmas than men.”

Having “any kind of volunteers coming in, especially over the holidays, is appreciated. These people are special,” he said.

During the three-hour visit on Christmas, the volunteers and women clapped to songs, laughed together, read the Bible and shared holiday joy in the small room. Some inmates choked back tears as volunteer Amy Carver of Irvine told them the volunteers themselves were the ones receiving the “gift of humanity.”

No one seemed to notice the irony of inmates crooning “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” while locked behind the barbed wire of a California prison.

Arlene Schultz of Irvine, a member of the Holiday Project for four years, usually visits juvenile homes. “But when they needed another person to go along on the team, I volunteered.”

The prison visits are not about helping less-fortunate people, she said. “Essentially what this is about is suspending your judgment of people. This is the season of acceptance and good.”

Inmate Sue Babcock, spending her eighth Christmas behind bars, offered tips for surviving what could be a depressing time of year: “It all depends on your state of mind. Being in here has been a breeze for me.”

Babcock, 47, was convicted of conspiracy to murder her ex-husband. She has nine children and is scheduled to be released in October.

“This is my last Christmas here,” she said, with delight. “My kids were real crazy at the thought of my coming here, but now it is almost over. It’s going to be so neat to be a mother again and a grandmother to a bunch of grandbabies.”

Paula Jackson’s baby will be born while she is still in prison. The 31-year-old who was convicted of passing bad checks is due to deliver her second child any day now. “This child will be 5 months old when I get out of here,” she said. “I am going to stay home for six months and just take care of her.”

Jackson, who sang a solo spiritual for the crowd, said her singing lifts her up when she gets down.

“You have to be strong in here. Some of the things that go on in here . . . ,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “You just got to depend on your state of mind.”

After the visit, Frank Hill of North Hollywood admitted that he had been afraid. This was his first visit to a prison.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “When they told me I was cleared to make the visit, my first question was, ‘But am I cleared to get out?’ ”

‘Nothing Like the Movies’

The 52-year-old bank employee said the inmates seem like ordinary people. “They are nothing like what you see in the movies. I wonder what got them there in the first place.”

Before Cathy Edwards of Chino made her first trip to the prison in 1985, images of hardened, desperate female convicts filled her head. “I was very apprehensive,” she said, “I thought I would meet a wall of resistance. But I didn’t. I was very much at ease.” This time, she said, it was easier.

Edwards, 41, a part-time merchandiser and substitute teacher, said she was surprised at the appearance of the women convicts. “They look so young. They remind me of the high school girls I see who sit at the back of the classroom.”

Edwards said she always felt that her church should have been involved in some sort of a prison program. “But the church wasn’t. I was brought up to believe that (volunteering) at the prison should have been an act of mercy.”

Plans Return Visits

After Edwards read about the Holiday Project in a national magazine, she said she was delighted to find a local phone number for the organization. Now she plans to keep coming back to spend part of her holidays with the women inmates.

“I identified with the women there. I know that it is a cliche, but I thought, ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I.’ ”

As the volunteers gathered up music sheets and announced the last song, inmate Clara Brown had one last request.

“You all please come back next year,” she said. “I don’t mind so much going back and being locked up tonight. I am taking all of these smiling faces back with me.”