Hamilton County Angel Tree Volunteer Coordinator Mimi Neighbors said many more churches are needed to provide gifts for children of inmates to help them celebrate Christmas.
Project Angel Tree provides inmates the opportunity to give their children Christmas gifts. Angel Tree began in 1982 through the ministry of Prison Fellowship which was founded by Chuck Colson and has served over seven million children in the U.S. The ministry is now in 100 other countries, as well.
Founder of project Angel Tree, Mary Kay Beard, said each year inmates fill out an application for their children to receive Christmas gifts through churches. Churches volunteer to participate and provide Angel Tree coordinators. Prison Fellowship then assigns the children to the church according to the number of children their congregation is able to support. A Christmas tree is placed in the church and participants select an angel ornament off the tree that has the name of a child for them to sponsor. As Christmas approaches members of the congregation either deliver presents directly to the children or they hold a party for them to come and receive their presents.
Ms. Neighbors said the ministry is careful to be loyal to two requirements Mary Kay established when the ministry was first trademarked to Prison Fellowship: 1) the gift is always given at the request of the incarcerated parent and on their behalf. 2) The gifts are always given through a church and accompanied with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Mary Kay said the idea project Angel Tree came from her own experiences as an inmate. When she was serving time in prison, she was impressed by people in the community who distributed gifts to her and fellow inmates at Christmas time. She said people gave them toiletries as well as “kid’s crafts to keep them occupied.” Many of the women gave the gifts they received to their children since they had nothing else to give them.
When Mary Kay was released from prison after six years, she began working for Prison Fellowship. During her first year she was put in charge of developing a project for Christmas. While speaking at a ladies’ luncheon, one of the attendees commented that children are the victims of crime and that she would be interested in helping the children of inmates. Mary Kay states, “This was the birth of the Angel Tree.”
Mary Kay said the ministry went beyond what she ever could have imagined. After the first Angel Tree Christmas, the children who received gifts were encouraged to write letters to their parents. At this time she and other Prison Fellowship volunteers were leading small Bible studies of inmates. “In prison if 10 percent attend that’s a good average. After the ministry began, these grew two to three times in attendance.” When parents received letters she said they started coming to her Bible study as a way to say thank you to the group that provided the gifts. In turn, “many came to know the Lord.”
Many ex-offenders volunteer and participate in Angel Tree as a way to give back. Furthermore, some of the coordinators were recipients of Angel Tree gifts. Mary Kay said hundreds of inmates have said to her, “I never thought anyone would get my kids such nice gifts.”
According to Mrs. Beard, the ministry provides churches with the opportunity to make connections with families and “try to reach them for Christ.” She said, “This is a wonderful tool of evangelism, which was not part of my original thinking.”
This year hundreds of children still need to be placed. Ms. Neighbors said, “We desperately need for churches to come along and help.”
Churches that would like to participate in project Angel Tree this Christmas should contact Mimi Neighbors at (423) 899-0949. Each church will receive a setup kit directly from Prison Fellowship explaining the entire ministry process and including many of the materials needed to facilitate the program.