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8th ANNUAL REPORT CARD 1963 THE ANNUAL REPORT of an organization will be read, it is hoped, by many who may have little or no knowledge of its history, or even its purpose. Hoping that people will be inspired to start Friends Outside in other places, we give a short resume for their benefit. In 1956 two volunteers started to visit the families of prisoners in the County Jail who were worried about “what was happening at home". One of our first cases was to find the mother of an elderly man in jail for being mixed up in a drunken brawl in which he had lost his wallet. He said he was driving her from Oregon to Southern California, they had stopped for the night at a motel,, he had gone out in the evening and had not returned. She was 80 and practically blind. The same year we were asked to visit the SADDEST MINORITY GROUP in the County - the WOMEN PRISONERS - and set up a recreation program for them. One of our first errands was to the home of a woman who was being held in jail until some information had been obtained. She was frantic because she had left a retarded adult daughter and a dog locked in her house. She had expected to return home immediately after the court hearing. These two cases are not typical of the majority but illustrate the need of someone to go to the rescue of the innocent victims, and at least to prove to the prisoners there are FRIENDS OUTSTDE. Most of our visits are to wives and children of prisoners who are caught in the trap of poverty. Their very concern for their family means that many are rehabilitable., but we have learned that pulling families off the rocks and refloating them is a long, slow process. So each succeeding year we give more and more reports on projects we sponsor "on the Outside”. These are slanted towards making HAPPIER ADULTS who can then be BETTER PARENTS, and HAPPIER CHILDREN are less likely to drop out of school. Adding both together, we hope it will result in PREVENTING JUVENILE DELINQUENCY. THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE has met regularly through the year., generally in the library of the Elmwood Rehabilitation Center, by invitation of the Jail Farm Commander. Almost simultaneously with the incorporation of Friends Outside as a non-profit organization., our late sponsoring body., the AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE, closed the San Jose office, which we had shared for so long. No one will ever know how much Friends Outside owes to the AFSC, for it carried all our overhead expenses in the years we lived on faith without a desk typewriter or a telephone to call our own. In June we inherited their office and a desk, took over the telephone and bought a second hand typewriter and felt that we had come of age at last. PERSONNEL rises and falls. Both Assistant Directors are out of the country. Laura Grey is in Japan for a year., and Thelma Rhoades and her husband are on a Peace Mission in Honduras. Ann Horvitz has filled one of these gaps and will be the Assistant Director for the North County. Last September our very efficient Secretary left the area and has not yet been replaced. Otherwise our list of Volunteers matches our projects in a miraculous way. WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK MOST WARMLY ALL THE PROFESSIONAL AGENCIES WHICH ARE SO GENEROUS IN THEIR COOPERATION. When I was in England last year, I spent some time finding out what the concerned citizen's role was in this day and age. It was the same as ours - to fill in gaps left by the sheer impossibility of having enough professional workers to go around. The only difference is that in England this cooperation between agency and volunteer is an accepted way of life. It is structured by monthly meetings between members of all the social agencies and the local "County Care Committee” which is given cases that need more time and/or money than the agencies can allow. I have just heard that a Foundation has given a large grant towards volunteer training so this program can be expanded. FINANCIALLY our Treasurer says we are sound and that the Director’s salary is being met without depriving our clients. But in this area we must never relax, for we must always be looking for new sponsors to replace dropouts and to finance our ever-expanding projects. Here we would like to register our deep appreciation of the ORIGINAL CIRCLE SECRETARY, who at the age of 92, has regretfully resigned. She was a paragon of the species for never, in all these years., did she ever let a member of her circle default! Thank you, dear Londa Fletcher - you have been a staunch friend to all prisoners and captives all your life. THE CLOTHES CLOSET in San Jose has been faithfully looked after all the year by 2 devoted Volunteers. They write that in 4 months we supplied clothing to approximately 25 adults and 200 children. In the North County the PTA wardrobes are well supplied and we channel our families to use them. SERVICES WE RENDER ON THE "OUTSIDE" FOR THE FATHERS there is a club called the OUTSIDERS that was started by released men themselves to help each other stay out of jail. After an inactive year, it has been revitalized by a Board of Advisors in San Jose. There is a weekly Club Meeting and a class in FURNITURE REFINISHING is in progress, THE MOTHERS can join one of the 4 FRIENDLY MOTHERS CLUBS held in the North County, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Alum Rock area. These are run by the members, for the members, with a team of volunteers as advisors. The Clubs have proved a perfect field where volunteers, with a little orientation, can follow up social agencies which are working to raise all the low income groups out of their pattern of factual and psychological poverty. We look forward to the day when a separate Board of Directors might sponsor a "Federation of Friendly Mothers Clubs". Clubs for low income group women are needed everywhere. Social Workers are asking us to include their clients, and when club members leave the area, they write and ask us to introduce them to the nearest FMC because they are so lonely. THE PRE-SGHOOL CHILDREN who accompany their mothers to the Clubs get a NURSERY SCHOOL experience with the idea they will thus start kindergarten at a level more comparable to children from less culturally deprived homes. We try to find a volunteer with some nursery school TEACHING experience to head up the team of volunteers who work with the children. To quote from one report – "We have an exceptionally fine group of children with no behavior problems at this time, We have a regular nursery school program set up hoping to better prepare them for school." Between 80 and 90 children are having a nursery school experience through their mothers being members of the Clubs. THE GRADE SCHOOL CHILDREN of members of the North County Club had another Day Camp experience this summer at the Mountain View Recreation Park, one day a week for 9 weeks. The average attendance was 32. In September a very happy thing happened. One of our most faithful Camp Counselors over the years, and now a sophomore at Foothill College started a SERVICE CLUB and made the Friendly Day Camp one of its projects. The result is that college students have joined high school students as counselors. The Club financed a wonderful trip to the Zoo, when 38 campers were shepherded by 22 counselors. We are also happy to say that through the cooperation of the YWCA in Palo Alto, the responsibility for the Day Camp will be shared in the future with its Youth Director, Carol Nyholm. TUTORING IN THE HOMES of these children has been undertaken by College Students from Stanford and San Jose State. To quote from a report - "When the Student Advisor suggested that the tutors remain emotionally detached, one of them replied passionately, ‘I don't know but that I'd die if Eddie doesn't pass!' (We oldsters are always grumbling that young people are so self-centered!) It is interesting that all the students who tutored in 1962 (who were not seniors) came back to tutor this year and picked up the same families. TWEENAGERS ?????? Here is our $100.00 problem. Up to 12 years of age, Hi-school counselors are accepted as Big Kids doing things for younger ones, but at 13 these culturally deprived teenagers need to do things themselves. They cannot jump from being campers to counselors in the same camp without a few years separation from the group. This is where we need the understanding and cooperation of the UNITED FUND SPONSORED Youth Activities. It is absolutely necessary that they step in and make these neglected and often defensive adolescents feel welcome and that the more attractive recreational projects are within their financial reach. In the area of joining youth organizations., we would like to suggest that children from a poor district have just as much to offer to Scouting as do children from a middle class suburb. NOTE: In 1964 WE MUST FIND STAFF AND HI SCHOOL COUNSELORS TO RUN DAY CAMPS ON WESTSIDE AND EASTSIDE SAN JOSE AND FINANCIAL HELP TO UNDERWRITE THE EXPENSE. THE ROCK PILE WIDOWS., the self-named group of wives who are staying faithful to men serving sentences in State or Federal Prisons, are the newest charges of Friends Outside. It is interesting that this group never got off the ground while we tried to make their meetings an opportunity for group therapy with a professional counselor. The psychologist sensed she was not fulfilling the most immediate need of the majority, and after a lovely discussion it was decided the group wanted an advisor and a pot-luck supper once a month. They have since elected officers who plan the evenings during which they hold a business meeting and have a good time, It is impossible to describe what this evening without their children means to the girls. If more people could imagine the emotional anguish they live through, the horrible situation of being ONE parent to the children of a convict., the hatred they must feel to our punishing society, and what lovely human beings most of them are, then more people would feel deeply concerned in getting better "correctional procedure". SERVICES RENDERED TO PRISONERS "INSIDE" WOMEN PRISONERS: We quote verbatim from a report of a volunteer who has visited the women in the jail for the past 5 years. "There will be some changes made when the women are moved to their new quarters "down on the farm. Change is good. It takes us out of ruts by stimulating new thoughts and actions. Let us hope we can now widen our horizons and think beyond sewing projects and the never-ending search for solutions to the various individual problems, We would like to see a "Physical Fitness program to help the gals keep from "Physical Fatness" and mental sluggishness. Speaking of physicals, we'd like to see one given to every VD suspect., many of whom are brought into the dormitories without a checkup. It is little comfort to be told how UNINFECTIOUS VD is, when circumstances force a cross section of the public to live in such close proximity as they do in a crowded jail. Friends Outside were told that a routine VD check would be made as soon as nurses were added to the jail staff. Nurses have been employed for over a year, but there has been no improvement in this area, or indeed in other types of requested medical service. We Volunteers are perfectly aware of the CHRONIC COMPLAINERS and of the PSYCHOSOMATICS., but as taxpayers are also aware how uneconomical aspirins are in the end when a patient finally is taken to the County Hospital as an emergency. With more help we hoped the medical attention would improve, but it seems only to add to the "blocking" of requests to see a doctor. We wish that psychiatric care for those so obviously in need of it could be obtained, At least an evaluation made of a prisoner's mental condition. While wishing, let's hope for a more intensive focus of the Huber Plan for the women. We would like to see more leave the jail with their self respect restored by having a job than to leave penniless and jobless." Rosemary Goodenough adds: "I am ashamed to say that I have increasingly stayed away from the Women's Quarters since the retirement of the Senior Matron and no one replacing her in authority. The morale, physical appearance and general behavior has so deteriorated that I have felt uncomfortable up there,, representing as I do an organization devoted to the rehabilitation of prisoners. However, in 1964 we have high hopes for better things., and once again I hope to leave the Women's New Quarters feeling everything is being done to restore the individual's self respect. As I believe every experience a human being has can be turned to good account, so I believe a jail sentence served where a high standard of behavior is shown by the staff and expected from the prisoner, where human needs are not neglected, and as much activity as possible is expected from all, a woman could leave after paying her debt to society, better for the experience and not sicker, sadder and even less well adjusted." INTERVIEWING MEN SENTENCED TO THE COUNTY JAIL FARM EI24WOOD VOLUNTEERS faithfully drive 30 miles 5 times a week to tell the lately arrived inmates that if they are worried about their families that Friends Outside will visit. During the first 6 months of the year,, approximately 150 were seen by our Volunteers. So many men have such a real need for attention that they come regardless of whether they have families or not. Out of the 150 men interviewed, approximately 45 felt their families were in need for immediate help, about 100 had legitimate requests such as telling relatives where they were, asking us to contact employers, and often, the illiterates asking for letters to be written, etc.; and the remaining customers asked the impossible., such as "telling my social worker what I think of him" or "ask my wife to come to see me and bring the children" and then finding out he has not been home for months - or even years!! In all these years we have never had a rude, obscene or sneering word spoken to us. Even when we regretfully have to deny a request, the men treat us with great courtesy. Perhaps that is why the Volunteers are so extraordinarily faithful and let nothing short of a domestic crisis keep them from their "date at Elmwood". Of course, the fine WELCOME we get from the STAFF adds much to the satisfaction of the job. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Friends Outside are too intelligent to be satisfied with what they do. They know that so much of what they do ought not to need doing. Why are there so many desperately hungry people? Granted there will always be some to look after, but as we visit the families for whom the men signed up for our Christmas Boxes, and find some of the men home, but workless and out of groceries and know it is NOT THEIR FAULT, what have we to say? How can we find a solution to the dental needs of our clients? The young mothers who have had their teeth pulled and are now left "in their guns"? Here we try to encourage people to be better parents, to join the PTA, go to the Public Library, but would YOU if you had no teeth? What do we say to the mother who says she has asked for her child to be kept back in school because he does not know the work, and the answer from the Principal is, "I can't keep him back - there isn't room". Perhaps a solution would be that EVERYONE who does not have to earn a living, turn around and help out in the area in which they are best suited. In schools, hospitals, old people's homes, the social agencies everywhere where there is under-staffing,, overcrowding because of a lack of supervision, and under-loving because of lack of time. "I AM MY BROTHER'S KEEPER" seems to be the only answer to this overwhelming problem of wholesale neglect. Maybe it would solve a whole lot of other problems too. Some of the over-fed, over-dressed, over-protected., over-supervised, would suddenly wake up to a new chance of independence and become responsible citizens with a reverence for life. MILLIONS OF AMERICANS cannot forever bury their heads in the sand to avoid seeing the MILLIONS OF OTHER AMERICANS who are caught in the hopeless TRAP of POVERTY. Santa Clara County FRIENDS OUTSIDE 285 South Market Street San Jose, California |
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