By MATT THACKER
Even those behind bars this holiday season in the Clark and Floyd County jails will receive some Christmas gifts.
Volunteers from local churches will deliver 800 gift baskets to inmates Dec. 20-21. A local youth group helped bag the gift items last Saturday. The bags were filled with snacks, books, magazines, shampoo, soap and deodorant.
“We wanted to do something for the community,” said Lian Wong, who is leading the ministry. “We thought this was important.”
Volunteers from the Seventh-Day Adventist churches at Maple Street in Jeffersonville and 1101 Silver St. in New Albany came together to support the Christmas Behind Bars Ministry. This is the second year they have participated in the program.
Volunteers will deliver 350 baskets to the Floyd County Jail and 450 baskets to the Michael L. Becher Adult Corrections Facility.
About 20 of the volunteers bagging the items were from a youth ministry called Pathfinders.
“People in prison are obviously there because they did something wrong, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something nice for them,” said Tiffany Kendall, co-leader of Pathfinders.
Wong said last year about 35 or 40 of the inmates they gave bags to attended Bible study after being released from jail.
“It has a lot of positive impact,” said Kendall, who also noted that a member of their ministry has a family member in jail. “They never get anything in jail.”
The Christmas Behind Bars Ministry began in the mid-1990s after a former prisoner, Lemuel Vega, of Bluffton, began taking gifts to a jail in Northern Indiana. He later became a Christian and wanted to provide encouragement to the families. The ministry has spread throughout the country.
