Girl Scouts go behind bars to bond with their fathers
LIMA, Ohio -- The convicts stand in a circle, three fingers pointed skyward, nine faces set in stone, their deep, male voices raised in slow recitation of the Girl Scout pledge.
At their sides stand their daughters, their small fingers also raised in the Girl Scout salute. This is the regular monthly meeting of Troop 884 -- not in a school, not in a church, but at the Allen Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison.
Lugging boxes filled with sandwiches, Hawaiian Punch, potato chips, and sashes bearing merit badges, the girls file into a linoleum-floored visiting room on Wednesday afternoon. They range in age from 6 to 12; they are in shorts and purple Girl Scout T-shirts, in tennis shoes and ankle socks, their hair bouncing in pony tails, swept back with headbands, tied with sparkling barrettes.
Their dads -- most of them imprisoned for drug trafficking, serving sentences ranging from 36 months to 18 years -- hang back for a few heartbeats, adjusting to an abrupt shift in reality. They have just been strip-searched before being allowed to change into identical polo shirts and khaki trousers, rewards for good behavior and participating in this program.
It takes about 30 minutes and copious amounts of sandwiches and chips and bright pink drinks for dads and daughters to catch up and settle in. Then there are cookies and cake and games and merit badge work and projects designed to help parent and child -- the latest is a lesson in how to open a small business. Many nail and hair salons are planned.
The meetings last about two hours. This Daddies and Daughters chapter is a pilot, part of the Girl Scouts' Beyond Bars program, a 14-year-old effort funded by the Justice Department. It is the only one that unites fathers and daughters. Every other troop -- about 40 across the country -- brings mothers and daughters together.
The goal is to establish a relationship between parent and child, in some cases where none existed. Each group is taught how to understand the other. Parents learn how to lead by example, how to set goals, and how to simply spend time with their children. The girls learn how to deal with the burden of having a parent in prison, how to respect themselves, how to be a responsible child. Having fun is also part of the plan.
The participants struggle to condense a month of news, hopes, and thoughts into two hours, and they feel, however briefly, the comfort of a father's touch and the warmth of a daughter's embrace.
