Twenty-plus former inmates of the Kulani Correctional Facility currently incarcerated at an Arizona prison wished their loved ones on the Big Island happy holidays on Saturday. ADVERTISING Twenty-plus former inmates of the Kulani Correctional Facility currently incarcerated at an Arizona
Twenty-plus former inmates of the Kulani Correctional Facility currently incarcerated at an Arizona prison wished their loved ones on the Big Island happy holidays on Saturday.
Thy Word Ministries in Panaewa hosted a series of video-conference calls for the inmates’ friends and family at the 2085 Awapuhi St. location. Inmates received 15 minutes with their visitors. Afterwards, volunteers handed out food and drinks while visiting keiki met with Santa and received gifts donated on behalf of Orchid Isle Auto Center. The event lasted from 8 a.m. into the afternoon.
Toni Ramsey, a retiree of the Hawaii Department of Public Safety, contacted one of her friends Saturday and said the video chats are imperative for Big Island inmates struggling with being miles away from their friends and family.
“When they’re in Arizona, it’s so important to inmates to have contact with the outside world,” she said. “When they were here, people could visit them every week, but now they can’t.”
Ramsey’s friend is one of the many inmates currently housed at a prison on the mainland after the state closed the Kulani Correctional Facility in 2009 for budgetary reasons. Plans are in the works to reopen the facility next year. Gov. Neil Abercrombie released capital improvement funds for the prison, which, according to a Dec. 4 article in the Tribune-Herald, will reopen July 1. The facility is expected to have 96 full-time staff positions and house about 200 low-risk inmates.
Assistant pastor Blane Kamanu, of Thy Word Ministries, said the church’s prison ministry group used to visit inmates regularly before the facility was closed. Following the closure, Kamanu said the church and its prison ministry worked with the state to provide video-conferencing opportunities for inmates wanting to reconnect with their loved ones back at home.
Video-conference calls are available once a month, and Thy Word Ministries and their volunteers have provided the service for more than three years.
Although the holiday cheer could be felt among friends, family and volunteers, Kamanu said the calls are sometimes “emotional.”
“Sometimes, the families don’t show up,” he said. “So, we go in there and counsel them and let them know that we love them and that Jesus loves them. We give them hope.”
At one point, Kamanu told fellow service member Georgia Wong about a woman who stopped by earlier in the day and was overwhelmed by the opportunity to see her son, whose face “she hadn’t seen in three years.”
“See, you don’t think about it until you actual experience it with these people,” Wong said before choking up.
For more information about Thy Word Ministries Faith Center of Hawaii call 935-7004.
E-mail Megan Moseley at mmoseley@hawaiitribune-herald.com
