Keeping children warm on Mother's Day
Wednesday, 09 May 2007
23 local children will spend Mother's Day in the Chowchilla Valley State Prison to see their moms.
By COURTNEY BACALSO and SERENA MARIA DANIELS
The Orange County Register
Frances Snyder couldn't forget the image of a 13-year-old boy giving up his blanket for a cold, sleepy girl.
That moment was photographed last year after the two children visited their mothers at the Chowchilla Valley State Prison for Mother's Day.
"I thought to myself, why couldn't we provide these children with 'quillows'?" said Snyder, an Orange resident.
With funding from members of the Santa Ana Emblem Club, of which Snyder is past president, member Carol Bieker made 23 blankets that convert into pillows for the children taking a five-hour bus ride Friday to Chowchilla with the Get on the Bus program.
Quillows of floral-, animal- and camouflage-print fabrics were given to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange's Detention Ministry, which funds the annual ride.
"This is really about the children, not their mothers," said Sister Anne Joseph, the ministry director. "The organization did a beautiful job and the children will really appreciate it."
The Get on the Bus program was started eight years ago by Los Angeles sisters Suzanne Jabro and Suzanne Steffen, who drove a busload of children to the women's prison. On Friday, 34 buses with 650 children from 17 cities in California will visit the five women's prisons. Each bus ride costs about $7,000 and the program relies heavily on donations, Joseph said.
Bieker has been making quillows for the club's Christmas bazaar for years.
She asked the ages and the genders of the children – four months to 18 years old – so she could customize the quillows.
"It took me over an hour and a half to make each one – not too long since I got it down pat," she said. "It's for the kids, especially since it gets kind of chilly on the bus rides."
Sister Joseph added: "This really helps our organization out. Our program is to help give the children the connection they need to their mothers."
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