By Cass Rains

Staff Writer

HELENA — Beyond chain-link fences and rolls of razor wire, an unusual sight can been in a prison workshop — inmates hunched over their crocheting and gluing yarn inside of decorated wooden boxes.

It’s a project still in its growth stage, subsisting mostly on donated materials and the desire of inmates to have a job at James Crabtree Correctional Center.

The Bridge Project, which has received awards from Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry and been recognized for its achievements, allows inmates that normally couldn’t work at the 860-inmate facility to produce more than just blankets and jewelry boxes.

“In here, idleness can lead to a lot of problems, as you can imagine,” Warden Eric Franklin said. “That’s why we wanted to have something for the 200 or so inmates who were remaining idle because of their physical limitations.”

Programs Director Doug Byrd said most of the prison’s inmates are serving sentences that will keep them from ever leaving the prison. The mostly over-35 prison population also is experiencing the same problems the population outside the prison has.

“Just like the Baby Boomers are experiencing medial problems related to age, so are our prisoners,” Byrd said. “The same thing is happening inside these walls.”

The Bridge Project employs those inmates who, because of physical limitations, are not employable in other areas of the prison.

“It’s an opportunity for them to give back,” Franklin said. “They see the good they do in it.”

Limited funding from Department of Corrections has forced the program to subsist on donations, Franklin and Byrd said, and that likely is what will keep it going.

They said the program will have to sustain itself with donations because most of the prison’s budget is dedicated to security rather than programs.

Also, funds allotted to the prison cannot be given away, Franklin said. Due to the program’s charitable nature, funds cannot be allocated for the production of the gifts.

To donate, Franklin and Byrd said to contact the facility.

“We’d be glad to come to you,” Franklin said.

“We’ll come to you,” Byrd said.

Therefore, little goes to waste in the workshop.

The sticks from corn dogs are cleaned and sanitized in an area beside the workshop. Once cleaned and dried, the sticks are cut to fit linear patterns designed by inmates for the jewelry boxes they make.

Scraps of yarn are laid on masking tape and ironed, to become the lining of the boxes being made in an assembly line type of process.

Donations of bags of yarn sometimes yield more than just material, Byrd said. One bag contained some crocheting patterns, which the prisoners used and learned, and then taught others.

Teaching is how the program was started.

One inmate knew how to crochet, and he taught another.

“It really blossomed from there,” Byrd said.

With the creation of the program, organization took hold and more and more inmates were learning how knit and crochet.

Some inmates enter the correctional center with additional skills, that often lead to better products coming from the workshop, but it ebbs and flows, Byrd said, when the program loses an inmate with a special skill.

Larry McBride had begun work on an afghan, which he will create with an intricate design of two mustangs running in the middle. McBride said he also plans to include some lettering above and below the picture of the horses.

“I just got hired as a tutor,” he said, stopping shortly to re-loop his crochet hook. “I’ve learned it since I’ve been in prison.”

McBride said he can knit all the cartoon characters — Bugs Bunny, Taz and Tweety Bird — and has sent blankets he’s made to his children.

His advice: “It’s just working your fingers, instead of your arms.”

A recent addition to the Bridge Project, McBride will teach others to include pictures in their work.

“It’s a blessing to teach other people in here how to do these things,” he said.

Another specially skilled inmate had his tools donated to the prison so they could be used in the Bridge Project.

Ratliff Granville uses his air-brush to spray intricate designs on the tops of some of the wooden boxes produced at the workshop.

“It’s a good deal to be able to do what I did on the outside, in the real world,” he said.

Granville used his airbrush at county fairs and other events. Byrd said he asked if his tools could be given to the prison for use in the program.

“All we had to do was have a signature on a piece of paper stating he knew it was becoming property of the prison,” Byrd said.

As he sprayed a design of a desert island, he stopped to contemplate, “I don’t know why, but kids love boxes.”

He also was sure to mention the needs of the workshop.

“We can always use donations for paint.”

He said there was something special about the Bridge Project.

“It’s truly a blessing to do what you love to do, especially in prison.”

The Bride Project program was able to get off the ground in the fall of 2004 thanks to donations from First Christian Church of Helena and others. Donations are what allow the project to keep producing gifts.

The blankets and jewelry boxes produced were given to local nursing facilities and families in need. The fruits of the inmates’ labor are beginning to spread throughout northwest Oklahoma.

This year, donations were sent to Fairview, Jet, Nash, Goltry, Cherokee and Waynoka.

“It’s grown quite a bit,” Byrd said of the project in the last year. “It evolves. It continually grows.”

The inmates produced about 200 toys to donate to needy children last year. This year, the number of toys has more than doubled, to about 500 toys, Byrd said. The inmates work about five or six hours a day in the workshop.

“If they weren’t working, they’d just be sitting on their bumps,” Franklin said. “It gives them a sense of purpose.”

Next week, Byrd said the shop will begin working full-steam to keep producing gifts for next Christmas.

“We’d like to double our numbers,” Franklin said, but growth depends upon support from outside the prison walls.

For information about James Crabtree Correctional Center Bridge Program, contact Warden Eric Franklin or programs coordinator Doug Byrd at (580) 852-3221.