High school students learn about and pray for lonely inmates, prepare to begin Christmas effort

The B.C. Catholic



Students at St. John Brebeuf Regional Secondary will bring a little Christmas cheer to some lonely prison inmates this year.

Though it is still months away, the school is already launching a prison ministry program that will involve writing Christmas cards, running a toy drive, and talking about social justice and works of mercy.

“Step one is to inform students that these are genuine people. They are not thrown away and forgotten about,” said principal Ted Brennan.

He invited Omar, a former prisoner, to the school before classes ended for the summer. “He spoke to students about the dangers of getting involved in the drug trade, life within prison, and how he’s changed his life.”

The next step is getting the students to do something. Nearby St. James Parish sends volunteers on prison visits every week. Though high school students are too young to do the same, Brennan has found other ways to get them involved.

Religion classes will collect unused Christmas cards and write messages to anonymous prisoners. Of course, students can’t write their names, the name of their school, or anything else that would identify them, but they can tell prisoners they’re praying for them.

“What we want to do is at some point have that ongoing connection with the prisoners,” in the form of a kind of pen-pal relationship.

“Quite often Christmas time for inmates is the loneliest time of the year,” said Bob Buckham, a prison ministry volunteer for 16 years.

He said prisons don’t do anything special at Christmas or Easter, so receiving Christmas cards from complete strangers can leave inmates “flabbergasted.”

“They are overjoyed with surprise and thankfulness that somebody thinks of them. It’s a tough existence. Even though they deserve to be there and they understand that, quite often they feel so alone.”

St. John Brebeuf will be the second Catholic high school in the area to send Christmas cards to inmates, but the first to launch a post-Christmas toy drive, Buckham said.

“When families visit institutions, quite often they bring their children with them.” The area where inmates meet their families has a toy section, often stocked with broken toys and dolls missing heads or legs, he said.

The school is planning a “toy drive to enhance these toy sections.”

The timing is just right, because “after Christmas, people have excess toys or toys they don’t play with anymore.”

Buckham is asking students to collect toys for children ages 2 to 10, and games like checkers that they can play with their incarcerated parents.

“When inmates can see these acts of kindness, it really speaks to what God asks us to do.”