Following two weeks of cold, messy winter weather, Parent Day at the Peace Center on Saturday, February 28 proved to be a bright spot for 16 children and 12 fathers who spent the day together playing board games and corn hole toss (with some pretty intense competition!), eating lunch prepared by men at the prison’s cook school, picking out books for the children to take home, using clay to make tiles for pictures frames that will hold pictures of children and fathers that a volunteer took, watching a Sesame Street DVD featuring Alex, a Muppet whose father is in jail, talking, laughing, and more. And, yes, there were tears at the end.
Meanwhile, the children’s caregivers 
and volunteers gathered at Hillsborough Presbyterian Church and watched the Sesame Street DVD, talked about their experience, heard about a local support group and a mediation program for people with loved ones in prison or leaving prison, ate lunch together, and offered support to one another.
Parent Day is sponsored by the Pre-Release Committee of the Community Resource Council at Orange Correctional Center and Our Children’s Place and is truly a team effort. A big “thank you” to the folks who made this one possible.
(reported by Melissa Radcliff of Our Children’s place)
Alamance-Orange Prison Ministry 