With the beautiful lyrics of Hip Hop Queen Mary J. Blige's "Good Woman Down" lifting them all to new heights, GMOTL  is pleased to tell you that the "Good Women Down" of Valley State Prison for Women received Christmas Goodie Bags for the very first time in 2007!  CCWF and CIW (the other two major women's prisons) have had them in the past few years thanks to the work and dedication of their respective Inmate Family Councils, and this past year the VSPW Inmate Family Council was at last able to join the fun!

The project kicked off in October 2007, much later than recommended because GMOTL learned about it at that time and offered to organize the project.  It's a good thing we didn't know then what a big project we had just volunteered for or we might have chickened out!  Our battle cry was "Jehovah Jireh" (Hebrew for the Lord provides) and we pressed on.  Even Scott Bussell, Ms. Blige's publicist was kind enough to speak to us personally.

Dermalogica, the world class cosmetic company, donated 6500 new items of facial cleansing gel, hand and nail treatment and so on.  That was our first donation for the bags and the green light we needed to keep going.  After that we began to get donations of cocoa, candy, tea, and sample sizes of lotion, shampoo, soap, and more from such sources as The Prather Family (and Ken Prather who designed our gorgeous cards!), CCWF Inmate Family Council, a huge van load of goodies from CIW's IFC, Saddleback College, UC at San Bernardino, New Life Fellowship Church in Oakhurst, Church of Christ in Tulare, Bikers for Christ, the amazing Bill Rich & Mark Smith (our heroes anytime), Lelah Santana (who generated the Dermalogica donation), Friends Outside who made sure we had a truck to haul our Dermalogica in!), Vic Abrunzo and the other members of the VSPW Inmate Family Council (all of whom gave time, money or backbreaking work to is so unselfishly), Maria Telesco and the Fresno Center For Non Violence who shared so much with us, and Mike Rasmussen (my husband and forever hero) who's Honeydo list was very long this year.

On Friday December 21, 2007 we were thrilled an excited to pull into the VSPW warehouse with Bill Rich's Harley trailer loaded with 52 boxes filled with 4200 bags for the women.  We were met by Lt. Herron and Ann Bell who supervised the unloading by very happy inmates and staff!  Lt. Herron's gracious reception made the trip fun and easy with all of us walking away thinking that VSPW is very fortunate to have the staff we met that day.

In addition, we have to give special mention to Warden Tina Hornbeak and Lt. James Neeley.  It was they who allowed the project to happen, but more than that they shared in the joy of doing it and made things so easy for us to make it happen.  We are deeply grateful to the staff of VSPW for being true partners in this project.  With an eye towards the 2008 project we hope all of you will check the list of what we need for the next bags on our website and start collecting now for the end of the year!

We are so grateful to the many groups and individuals on our team who came together to make this happen.  It was truly a team effort and we needed every single one of you.   This project reminds 4200 hundred women, most of whom are parents or grandparents, many of whom have no money or family to support them, that they are valuable women who are worthy of our love and encouragement.  They are reminded that they have good reasons to change and come back into society as positive role models and productive citizens.

Please join us as we enter 2008 and plan a new year of serving the women, their children and families who need us so much.