South Carolina program connects children with incarcerated mothers over the holidays

COLUMBIA, S.C. — In South Carolina, a program is connecting children with their mothers who are serving prison time over the holidays.

Riley’s Readers is a donation-based program allowing moms to give their children a present for Christmas.

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Families visit the Camille Graham Correctional Institution to see Santa and get a recorded storybook from their mom or grandma, so they can hear their voice when they’re not around.

“You take a lot of stuff for granted, just the littlest things, like changing their diapers. Or their first birthdays, or when they get sick,” one inmate told Channel 9. “All of that gets taken away and I don’t know, you just regret a lot of stuff. You just want them to grow up and know that it wasn’t intentional.”

The goal of the program is not only to help maintain connections with families, but also to help break the cycle of generational incarceration.

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