The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Ministry connects offenders, families

Volunteers record parents’ messages, mail them to relatives.

Man, 68, drowns at Caesar Creek Lake
5/26/12
Water rescues prompt warning from health officials
5/25/12
Beach Waterpark sued for failure to deliver
5/25/12
Raleigh Trammell’s defense opens in felony trial
5/25/12
UD to move satellite campus to Dublin
5/25/12
> More headlines

By Ted Cox, Staff Writer 6:54 PM Sunday, December 11, 2011

DAYTON — The maximum sentence at the MonDay Community Correctional Institution, a residential treatment program to divert substance abusers and other lower-level felony offenders from prison, is 180 days. But for the residents who are parents and their children, that can seem like a lifetime apart.

Epiphany Lutheran Church’s Storybook Project helps rebuild that bond between parent and child. Volunteers from the Centerville church take books and recorders to MonDay. The residents pick out a book, read it to a recording CD, then the volunteers mail the book and CD to any family member the resident requests.

“Being here has been really hard for me and my daughter,” said Cierra Jett of Dayton and a MonDay resident of more than five months. “I’m a full-time mom, and I’ve never been away from my child (who is 3). ... My daughter was acting out.

“I told her in the message that I sent to her with the book that I was here learning to be a better mom and that whenever she misses me that she could just listen to the CD. The Storybook Project really helped a lot.”

Resident Kelli Bush of Trenton also used the program as an opportunity to encourage her 12-year-old son to read by reading the first chapter of a football book to him.

Some children will visit the facility once a week to see their parents, but for others, such as resident Lindsay Wells of Middletown, she wasn’t able to see her son during her six-month stay that ended Monday. Her family was against bringing the 4-year-old to the facility.

“The best part about it was just being able to tell him I love him and for him to hear my voice,” she said. “Even in my addiction, I wasn’t able to read to him. ... I wasn’t there for him. To be able to do that now, that’s awesome.”

The women’s ministry began in 2001, and the men’s in 2005. The men, who fill two-thirds of the 200-bed facility, are just as eager to send books, said volunteer David Hesp.

Volunteers Beverly Cole and Beth Fischer said the residents get emotional when preparing the CDs.

One resident asked to read “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” to her dying 76-year-old mother. Another resident chose a book his parents read to him as child, along with the message: “Mom and Dad, I’m sending this book along to tell you that I’m going to be the same person you remember when I was 12.”

Several residents said the program is therapeutic.

“It was really good because, truth be told, I wasn’t in my son’s life as much as I should have been before I got in trouble,” said resident Skyler Hornagold of Miamisburg.

The volunteers try to visit MonDay twice a month. In 10 years, the program has mailed out about 6,500 packages, each costing about $5 to $6, volunteer Laurie Franz said.

That means a lot of money has been raised for the ministry, mostly from Epiphany members. Other groups also have donated, and this past year, the Alter High School sophomore class raised funds to buy two new CD recorders and created book stickers for the program.

“Once you’re a felon, a lot of society just kind of shuns you away,” said resident Christopher Moats of Springfield, who sent books to his young son and daughter. “But to have somebody take the time out and understand that people can be changed and do want to change, free of charge, is something for us.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 483-5245 or Ted.Cox@coxinc.com.

Share this article