The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

Local news

December 25, 2005

Crabtree inmates provide early Christmas gifts to care center

Related Photos

  • Eric Franklin (left), warden at James Crabtree Correctional Center, and Doug Byrd, programs director, unload Christmas scene boxes at Great Plains Care Center. (Staff Photo by ANDY CARPENEAN)

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  • Great Plains Care Center staff employees Jolene Thomas (left), Lori Bowden, (center) and Lucy Dikes care center administrator go through items before passing them out to residents.

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  • Certified nurses aide Jolene Thomas looks for a place to write a residents name on a multicolored blanket made by an inmate.

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  • A resident of Great Plains Care Center in Helena holds a box and blanket on his lap.

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By Cass Rains

Staff Writer

HELENA — The residents who could gathered in the lobby of the Great Plains Care Center shortly before 10 Wednesday morning, awaiting their early Christmas gifts.

The facility is one of only 20 nursing homes James Crabtree Correctional Center’s Bridge Project reaches.

The gifts, afghans, wooden jewelry boxes and Christmas cards come from a workshop located about four blocks away from the facility, which is no coincidence.

“Helping the local community was top priority when we started the program,” said JCCC Programs Coordinator Doug Byrd.

Toting in five boxes, courtesy of the prison’s Bridge Program, Byrd and Warden Eric Franklin began giving the gist to the 27 residents in the 50-bed skilled nursing center.

“We go in these places each year and let them handle it the way they want,” Byrd said as nurses and aides began distributing the gifts as wheelchairs rolled closer toward the table where the boxes were.”

Before the arrival of the gifts, Great Plains resident and former Crabtree Corrections officer Joe Carver was eager to share his thoughts on the prison.

“I retired after 19 years there,” Carver said, pointing up the street from the nursing center. “I know every officer that works there.”

Carver said his son also had worked at and retired from JCCC.

Upon Byrd and Franklin’s arrival, Carver was the first to offer a grateful greeting and a warm welcome to the familiar faces.

“I’m sure glad to see you guys,” Carver tells Byrd and Franklin as they begin unpacking the gifts.

“We’re glad to be here Joe, we’re glad to be here,” Franklin told the former corrections officer while handing him a hand-made wooden box and crocheted blanket.

How were Joe’s gifts?

“Great. Fantastic,” Carver said. “I’ve had a good Christmas – a very good Christmas.”

This was the second year items from the Bridge Project had been given to Great Plains, said Lucy Dykes, center administrator.

“They came out last year and brought us some blankets and other gifts,” she said while residents covered themselves with their new afghans.

The prison’s greenhouse had even provided some of the plants dotting the center’s lobby, she said.

The gifts received from the Bridge Project mean more to the residents than added warmth or a place to keep their jewelry, it’s a form of acknowledgment, Dykes said.

“You know, it just means so much to them. It means they’re not forgotten,” she said. “I think it means a lot to the prisoners.”

As a directory aide helped Franklin sort the gifts — a pile for the men and a pile for the women — they talked about the program.

“I think this program is a really neat deal,” Devonna Snider told Franklin.

His reply: “It’s a change of life for the prisoners.”

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