Angel Tree

Six million. That’s the cumulative number of prisoners’ children served by Angel Tree® in the U.S. over the past 27 years. And an ex-prisoner started it all.

Mary Kay Beard, founder of Angel Tree “I am both awed and humbled to have been a part of something so enormously effective,” says Mary Kay Beard. “Being there at the beginning — I consider it one of the highest privileges of my life.”

Mary Kay was a safecracker, a bank robber, and one of America’s Most Wanted. Arrested in June of 1972, she quickly collected 11 federal indictments and 35 charges against her. But her 180-year sentence turned into a six-year sentence — during which time she asked God to change her hardened heart.

On the three Christmases that she spent at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama, local church groups brought the inmates gifts of toothpaste and soap. Intrigued, Mary Kay watched as her fellow prisoners wrapped up the small gifts and gave them to their children at the Christmas visit.

“Most children wouldn’t think much of such small gifts, but in prison there was such joy on their faces!” says Mary Kay. “It didn’t really matter to them what they got; it was from Mama.”

Remembering the Children

After being paroled, Mary Kay became Prison Fellowship’s first Alabama State Director in 1982. One of her assignments was to create a Christmas project for prisoners. At one of her speaking engagements, a conversation with an ex-prisoner’s daughter brought the project into focus.

“What about the inmate’s kids?” the woman asked. “They are the real victims.”

Mary Kay recalled the toiletries that prisoners gave their children on Christmas. So she and a crew of volunteers began creating a program to provide real gifts for prisoners’ children.

Christmas gifts are extra special when they come from Mom or Dad! YOU can help prisoners’ children have that experience.

Their plan was to erect a Christmas tree at Birmingham’s Brookwood Mall, encouraging shoppers to buy presents for specific children. Then someone suggested writing the children’s names on paper ornaments shaped like angels — creating an “Angel Tree”!

So Mary Kay helped cut out 100 paper-angel ornaments and then visited prisoners to invite them to sign up their children.

“God never wastes anything,” Mary Kay says. “He used my own criminal past to give me credibility in their eyes. And they trusted us.”

Mary Kay called the caretakers of the children and asked what they wanted for Christmas. Then, she wrote each child’s name and the “gift wishes” on an angel ornament.

On the day after Thanksgiving — the busiest retail day of the year — an Angel Tree greeted shoppers at the top of the mall’s escalator. An advertisement in the Birmingham News had notified readers of the project. Many of the store owners agreed to offer a 10-percent discount to shoppers who bought their Angel Tree gifts there.

The response was overwhelming. That weekend, shoppers took all 100 angels to buy gifts. So Mary Kay visited more prisons, called more caretakers, and put more angels on the tree.

She and the volunteers wrapped gifts and made sure they would get to the right child. Then Mary Kay called the caregivers of the prisoners’ children to pick up the presents. She mobilized the Gideons and the Birmingham News deliverers to take gifts to children who lived far away.

That’s the history. Will YOU be a part of Angel Tree’s future?

That year, 556 children received gifts — but the effects spread even farther. “In January, all of my Bible study groups at that prison doubled or tripled,” said Mary Kay. “The newcomers were the inmates whose children had received gifts.”

The next year, Angel Tree branched out to 12 states and soon became a church-based program. Now — as PF’s most popular program — it reaches prisoners’ children not only throughout the U.S. but in 90 other countries as well.

Not Just for Christmas Anymore

Angel Tree now encourages and equips churches to reach out to prisoners’ children and their caregivers year-round — helping to restore family bonds and break the generational cycle of crime.

More and more churches now welcome prisoners’ families into their existing church services and ministries. And many provide other special outreaches, such as sending the children to Christian summer camps and matching the children with caring adult mentors.

The Bible promises, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" And we believe that "anyone" includes prisoners.

We've seen the "worst of the worst" make a complete turnaround through the power of Jesus Christ. Some may scoff, but "with God all things are possible," Jesus declared.

We're committed to the journey.

Radical, lasting change seldom takes place overnight. More often, it's an accumulation of steps — usually forward, but sometimes back, as we run into difficult terrain and roadblocks along the way.

The question is: What do you believe?

Prison Fellowship walks alongside prisoners as they take those difficult steps. We start with them inside prison, as they learn new values based on the life and teaching of Christ and how to apply them. We continue with them through the critical transition to the outside, helping them through obstacles and daunting temptations. So even if they stumble, it doesn't mean defeat.

We also help prisoners and their families rejoin their journeys, staying connected during incarceration, adjusting well when prisoners return home.

We don't do it alone.

From its beginning, Prison Fellowship has partnered with local churches to carry out this ministry of transformation. And in recent years God has brought together tens of thousands of men, women, and even youth to work with prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families. Across the country, they are uniting in local Communities of Care, providing support and services both inside and outside the prisons.

These churches also collaborate with scores of other faith-based ministries, community organizations, and corrections officials to ensure that, together, we can reach prisoners and their families with the best possible teaching, resources, and support.

Whatever your talent, interest, or time commitment, you can join in the journey!

So if released prisoners have nowhere to go, we may help them find housing. For prisoners' families in need, our volunteers may help with food and bills. Prisoners who dropped out of high school may receive help to earn their GEDs. Even prisoners with no family support are welcomed into accepting church families.

Anthony isn't the only one whose life was changed by Angel Tree. Anthony's mom "Shorty" as she likes to be called, experienced a transformation too - all because of a single gift through Angel Tree to her son.

Shorty started down a path to crime and destruction at a young age. By the time she was 11 years old, Shorty was in a gang and selling drugs. She was in and out of jail and rehabilitation centers throughout her childhood and teenage years. Nothing inspired change. Even after her son Anthony was born, Shorty continued her lifestyle of drug addiction, alcohol abuse and fast money.

Then, Shorty got a call from a woman she had never met.

"I'd called her initially to say that her ex wanted to give her son a Christmas present and if she would be willing to allow him to receive this gift," Sandy, the Angel Tree coordinator at City of Grace Church in Phoenix, explains. Shorty was suspicious of the generosity. Eventually Sandy's persistence resulted in Shorty reluctantly saying yes to her son receiving the gift.

Sandy didn't go away after Christmas. She invited Shorty and Anthony to church with her. At first, only Anthony accepted the invitation. He couldn't help but share his enthusiasm for his strengthened faith with his mother. He wanted his mom to feel the joy and love he felt. Through Anthony's encouragement and Sandy's gentle persistence, God's grace inevitably transformed Shorty's heart.

"Angel Tree has just made such an impact on my life," Shorty says. "I'm just in awe, because it's changed my life so much."

Finally rejecting a life of crime and drugs to embrace a relationship with Christ, Shorty wanted to give back to the people who inspired her. She now volunteers at an Angel Tree office and speaks at volunteer workshops because has made a promise to God that she will share her story of transformation.

Nine-year-old Elijah has Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.

On top of that, his dad is in prison.

Prison visits are difficult for any child, but it's especially difficult for Elijah because he has trouble coping with the hours of driving, the bright lights and the loud noises - and because of his autism, he has difficulty speaking even when he does see his dad.

However, Elijah can communicate with his father through pictures and cards.

A few days before last Christmas, Elijah sat down at his kitchen table and began to create a Christmas card for his dad. Just then, there was a knock on the door. Elijah looked up from his drawing to see a family of Angel Tree volunteers standing in his doorway with Christmas gifts just for him!

"I have no doubt that God had orchestrated the timing for Elijah to receive a gift from his dad while he was making a card for him," said Angel Tree volunteer Chris Pierce, who delivered the gifts with his son and daughter. "It's humbling to be the hands of God to others in need through opportunities like this."

When the volunteers left, Elijah carefully examined the angel-shaped tags on his gifts. Over and over he read the "Merry Christmas" message from his dad. Carefully, he hung the paper angels on his Christmas tree.

Then, Elijah actually spoke clearly: "My daddy sent a present to me!"

Inside the brightly wrapped gifts given on behalf of his father in prison, Elijah found a large metal Hess truck, two motorcycles, a pair of pants and a shirt - and plenty of construction paper and markers, perfect for making cards for his dad!

Through the hands of volunteers, and the generosity of donors like you, children like Elijah can feel a connection with a beloved parent and the love of God even in difficult times.

Jasmin's father is in prison. Her mother has been gone for years. As a result, Jasmin lives with her great-grandmother and has very little contact with her father's relatives. That is until Angel Tree helped give her the gift of family.

Angel Tree volunteer Wanda Sanseri got Jasmin's name because Jasmin's imprisoned father signed her up to receive Christmas presents on his behalf through Angel Tree. When Wanda found out Jasmin was also struggling in school, she decided to go beyond delivering gifts and offered to tutor her during Christmas break. The two clicked immediately.

But there was an even greater miracle at work here. Turns out that Jasmin was a distant cousin of Gary, Wanda's husband - a relative he didn't even know about. When Jasmin found out, she anxiously asked if she could call them "uncle" and "auntie." Gary taught Jasmin how to pray at meals and became a positive male figure in her life. God was bringing family back into the little girl's life.

But the miracles didn't stop here. Meanwhile, Jasmin's own father came back into the picture. After signing Jasmin up for Angel Tree and learning that distant relatives would deliver gifts to her on his behalf, he wrote in a letter to Wanda:

"I want to thank you very much for all that you can do for my daughter in this time of need for help. . . please tell my daughter that I love her and miss her much! May God bless you all!"

It all started because of an Angel Tree gift to a child, and today Jasmin has a sense of family and feeling loved. Wanda says: "Just as Jesus came to show us the Father's love, we are able to give this little girl the message that her dad may not be where she can see him, but he loves her very much."