irisheyes66
12-12-2003, 10:47 AM
Gratitude on the menu at annual dinner
Santa Claus pays a visit to Friday night's Christmas With Friends dinner at the El Dorado Civic Center
By STEVE SMITH, El Dorado Times Staff Writer
_________________________
Martha Gregg had a big "thank you" to deliver Friday night - and she was able to say it right to the people who were responsible for her gratitude.
Gregg is director of El Dorado's Bradford Memorial Library. She delivered the welcome at the annual Christmas With Friends dinner, held this year at the El Dorado Civic Center.
The event is held each year as a way for the community to express its gratitude for the work done by inmates at the El Dorado Correctional Facility North (formerly the honor camp).
Of the more than 112 man-hours performed over the year ending Oct. 31, 680 have been at the library.
"When I thinking about what to say to welcome all of you I just kept thinking about 680 hours you see listed after our name in the program," Gregg remarked.
According to her figures, she said, that would have amounted to $13,600 the library would have had to spend for the work the inmates have done.
"That's amazing," she said. "There's no way we could have done that on our own; we just couldn't have done it."
Gregg told the audience of inmates and community people "you probably have no idea what 680 man-hours mean to us at the library, but it is really, really significant."
Over the years, she said, display cases and oak shelving have been made by EDCF north unit inmates, who have also helped with the library's annual book sale.
"That means a lot to us; that's hauling a lot of books around all over creation, and I know that's hard work," she remarked.
Often, Gregg said, first-time visitors to the library will comment "on how beautiful our library is" without the metal shelving so often seen in other library facilities.
"It's a nice, warm, relaxing place to hang out," she said, adding the other comment she often hears from the public about Bradford's facilities is "where did you get this? How did you afford this?
"We'll tell them and they'll say 'can they do this in my house? Can they come and do this for me?'
"We feel very lucky, very fortunate."
Gregg said she recently attended a meeting of six library directors at libraries of comparable size in the South Central Kansas Library District.
"The subject of the cost of library materials - shelving and all of that - and of just running the place came up," she said, "and I mentioned how fortunate we were.
"Believe me - those gals were really jealous."
In his response, Joe Lujan said he and his fellow inmates "appreciate everyone's continued support of our work in the community.
"Through the efforts of the north unit administration and the community we inmates able to give something in return by donating our time and skills" to a variety of organizations.
"Through these and various other work programs," Lujan said, "we are able to become productive individuals by developing skills needed in today's society."
Inmates James Russell recalled the rebellion, anger and violence of his teenage years which eventually led to the purchase a shotgun on the morning of his 18th birthday.
A few months later he was in a county jail facing a charge of first degree murder.
"For the first time in years I saw what a truly horrible person I had become," Russell remarked, and he found himself "truly and completely sorry" for his actions and praying for God to "get me out of the trouble I had gotten myself into and as a "prodigal son" begging for mercy and forgiveness.
He eventually received a 96-month sentence in exchange for a plea of guilty to second degree murder.
Alhough "I know I cannot truly blame anyone other than myself" for being put in prison, Russell said, "I am not so blind" as to not be able to see the "dramatic role my surroundings played" in the resentment and callousness which built up inside of him during the years he spent in incarceration before coming to the north unit.
"My faith and my actions suffered during that time," he remarked.
In the year and a half he has spent at the north unit, Russell said, he has come to enjoy - instead of being nervous about - walking the unfenced track and yard there.
He also no longer had a sense of "feeling uncomfortable and threatened" when a corrections officer "talked to me like I was a human being," he commented.
"I began to feel less like a caged animal," he said, adding "I believe the north unit bears a good deal of the responsibility for the softening of much of the anger and the bitterness" which had been in him before he arrived there.
________________________
I believe articles like this are further proof that our prisons have many who want to (and can!) change...when given the proper support and motivation to do so.
Susan in Providence
Santa Claus pays a visit to Friday night's Christmas With Friends dinner at the El Dorado Civic Center
By STEVE SMITH, El Dorado Times Staff Writer
_________________________
Martha Gregg had a big "thank you" to deliver Friday night - and she was able to say it right to the people who were responsible for her gratitude.
Gregg is director of El Dorado's Bradford Memorial Library. She delivered the welcome at the annual Christmas With Friends dinner, held this year at the El Dorado Civic Center.
The event is held each year as a way for the community to express its gratitude for the work done by inmates at the El Dorado Correctional Facility North (formerly the honor camp).
Of the more than 112 man-hours performed over the year ending Oct. 31, 680 have been at the library.
"When I thinking about what to say to welcome all of you I just kept thinking about 680 hours you see listed after our name in the program," Gregg remarked.
According to her figures, she said, that would have amounted to $13,600 the library would have had to spend for the work the inmates have done.
"That's amazing," she said. "There's no way we could have done that on our own; we just couldn't have done it."
Gregg told the audience of inmates and community people "you probably have no idea what 680 man-hours mean to us at the library, but it is really, really significant."
Over the years, she said, display cases and oak shelving have been made by EDCF north unit inmates, who have also helped with the library's annual book sale.
"That means a lot to us; that's hauling a lot of books around all over creation, and I know that's hard work," she remarked.
Often, Gregg said, first-time visitors to the library will comment "on how beautiful our library is" without the metal shelving so often seen in other library facilities.
"It's a nice, warm, relaxing place to hang out," she said, adding the other comment she often hears from the public about Bradford's facilities is "where did you get this? How did you afford this?
"We'll tell them and they'll say 'can they do this in my house? Can they come and do this for me?'
"We feel very lucky, very fortunate."
Gregg said she recently attended a meeting of six library directors at libraries of comparable size in the South Central Kansas Library District.
"The subject of the cost of library materials - shelving and all of that - and of just running the place came up," she said, "and I mentioned how fortunate we were.
"Believe me - those gals were really jealous."
In his response, Joe Lujan said he and his fellow inmates "appreciate everyone's continued support of our work in the community.
"Through the efforts of the north unit administration and the community we inmates able to give something in return by donating our time and skills" to a variety of organizations.
"Through these and various other work programs," Lujan said, "we are able to become productive individuals by developing skills needed in today's society."
Inmates James Russell recalled the rebellion, anger and violence of his teenage years which eventually led to the purchase a shotgun on the morning of his 18th birthday.
A few months later he was in a county jail facing a charge of first degree murder.
"For the first time in years I saw what a truly horrible person I had become," Russell remarked, and he found himself "truly and completely sorry" for his actions and praying for God to "get me out of the trouble I had gotten myself into and as a "prodigal son" begging for mercy and forgiveness.
He eventually received a 96-month sentence in exchange for a plea of guilty to second degree murder.
Alhough "I know I cannot truly blame anyone other than myself" for being put in prison, Russell said, "I am not so blind" as to not be able to see the "dramatic role my surroundings played" in the resentment and callousness which built up inside of him during the years he spent in incarceration before coming to the north unit.
"My faith and my actions suffered during that time," he remarked.
In the year and a half he has spent at the north unit, Russell said, he has come to enjoy - instead of being nervous about - walking the unfenced track and yard there.
He also no longer had a sense of "feeling uncomfortable and threatened" when a corrections officer "talked to me like I was a human being," he commented.
"I began to feel less like a caged animal," he said, adding "I believe the north unit bears a good deal of the responsibility for the softening of much of the anger and the bitterness" which had been in him before he arrived there.
________________________
I believe articles like this are further proof that our prisons have many who want to (and can!) change...when given the proper support and motivation to do so.
Susan in Providence