Program helps moms stay close to kids

By Cathy Spaulding
Phoenix Staff Writer

May 10, 2008 09:27 pm

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TAFT — Eddie Warrior Correctional Center inmate Tina Hendrix is warned about crying while she prepares to record a message to her son.
“Push ‘pause’ on the tape if you think you’re going to cry,” fellow inmate Patrice Wooden tells Hendrix as she sets up the tape player. “You don’t want the children to think you’re not OK.”
Hendrix gets through the recording, though she must dab tears from her eyes several times before it’s over. Mothers doing time at Eddie Warrior often get emotional when they record messages and stories for their children. With help from the Muskogee Soroptomist Club, the inmates get that opportunity through Mother’s Touch.
It’s one chance the women have to “establish media contact with their children,” said Vicky Spradling, immediate past president of the Muskogee Soroptimist Club. Soroptimist is an international organization dedicated to improving lives of women.
Members of Muskogee Sorptimist visit the prison two Saturdays each month to help women record CDs of stories read from children’s and teen’s books. The club then sends the CDs, the mothers’ pictures and the books to the inmates’ children.
They have a lot of packages to send.
More than 80 percent of the 764 inmates at Eddie Warrior have children, said Kathryn McCollum, chaplain at the correctional center. She said they the club tries to let the inmates make a recording every six months, but 100 to 150 women remain on the waiting list.
McCollum said Mother’s Touch means a lot to the inmates.
“They know they made negative choices,” she said. “This makes them feel like they’re doing something positive.”
Sorpomist President Carole Fisher said the program “helps mothers mend fences between themselves and their children.”
“Even though the children did not do the crime, they are paying for it,” Fisher said. “These children go to bed by themselves at night and do not have their mothers there to say ‘I love you.’ They do not hear their mother’s voice. That’s what we have with these recordings, the kids can play them over and over.”
The Soroptomists set a bin of children’s books outside the chaplain’s office, where the messages are recorded.
Ten mothers, dressed in their gray prison fatigues, sort through the books to pick one to read. They line up outside the office, and wait with tense nerves.
“We were all rushing trying to get here this morning,” said Natasha Purcell, who has one book each for her four children, ages 11, 8, and 22 months. “Half of us didn’t even eat breakfast.”
Purcell, 27, is serving six years for delivery of a controlled dangerous substance.
Sarah Klotz, 22, serving five years for conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, anxiously checks out two books: Aladdin and Snow White.
“You think boys will be offended if I give them a pink book?” she asks. “But they love these stories and they have almost all the Disney movies.”
Another inmate assures her: “I don’t think it matters as long as it’s coming from you.”
Klotz has two sons, ages 4 and 6. She said that since she came to prison in early February, the boys have been staying with her mother.
“They’re amazing little boys,” Klotz said. “Now, any time they want to hear my voice, they can with this CD.”
She reads from the Disney books, concluding her reading with “I’ll be home in seven months.”
Patrice Wooden shoots a Polaroid picture of each woman standing in front of a poster of angels. She then sits them down and shows how to read the books and work the tape player.
Hendrix, 36, of Chelsea, reads “E-Mail From God for Teens,” an advice book by Claire and Curt Cloninger, for her 12-year-old son.
“It’s got some good stuff in it, it made me cry,” says Hendrix, who is serving five years, 15 months, for driving under the influence.
She reads a passage about getting through hard times.
“’When something bad happens, you will cry, but I will love you through the pain,’” she reads, concluding her message with “I will see you soon.”
After turning off the tape, she lets the tears come. “He’s my buddy, I’m telling you.”
The Soroptomists got involved with Mother’s Touch when program founder Suzanne Edmondson spoke at a meeting about 10 years ago, Spradling said. Edmondson developed the program “Tales of the Rising Moon,” in which Eddie Warrior inmates recorded stories, songs and messages for their children.
“And when she was done, there was not a dry eye in the place” Fisher said. “We bought books, donated money for postage and tried to find some way we can support the program.”
“We got on board with it right away,” Spradling said.
The club got even more involved with it two years ago, she said.
The Soroptomists budget about $1,000 per year for Mother’s Touch. The club now is seeking a $10,000 grant from Soroptomist International to pay for cameras and digital CD recorder set-ups.
“Then we can do two sessions at once,” Spradling said. “It will double our intake and output. The more we can do, the more we can put more mothers in touch with their children. Instead of doing 10 inmates on Saturdays, we can do 20 and on holidays, we can do several Saturdays in a row.”
The Soropotmist volunteers have seen all sorts of women read to their children.
“I saw some of them go up with a real tough swagger in them, and then they’d break down,” Walker said.
Some of the women are grandmothers, Spradling said.
“Some don’t look old enough to have kids,” Fisher said.
“Sometimes they break up and we often have to stop the tape and they have to cry,” she said.
“But in all cases, they’re tears of joy,” said member Anita Walker.
“The sad thing is that some of these mothers have several children in several locations,” Fisher said.
McCollum said she has seen how Mother’s Touch has made a difference for both the mother and children.
“A grandmother who was caring for an inmate’s child said she at first was not impressed with the program, she felt the mother should have been a better mother when she was out,” McCollum said. “Then she told me ‘once I got the package and he put his mom’s picture by the side of the bed, he had his first good night sleep in the year since his mother went to prison.’”

Soroptimist International in Muskogee
• MEMBERSHIP: Soroptimist International in Muskogee has 40 members; the international organization has 90,000.
• PROJECTS: Mother’s Touch program, Violet Richardson Award, domestic violence intervention, Mother’s Day Brunch.
• MEETS: Monthly meetings plus special events.
• TO JOIN: For information about how you can become a part of the Soroptimist International in Muskogee, call Carole Fisher at 683-2846.
• ESTABLISHED: Local chapter founded in 1952. National group started in 1921.

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