What is the Angel Tree Network?

Last Christmas my wife and I decided that we wanted to give and volunteer more during the holiday season. Our church sponsored many opportunities, but we decided to participate in one we had not heard of before: the Angel Tree Network. All we knew about the Angel Tree Network is that you could pick an "angel" off of the tree, buy the gift and it would get to a needy child. However, there was more to that story.

What is the Angel Tree Network? The Angel Tree Network allows people to pick gifts to buy for children in specific age groups, gender and interests. For example, you can buy gifts for a ten year-old boy who likes Spiderman and basketball, just as we did for Kevin (names are changed for protection purposes). He also had a six year-old sister, Jenny that enjoyed Barbie dolls and play-dough. But these children aren't necessarily poor, disadvantaged or orphans. The Angel Tree Network is made of children who have a mother or father in prison.

Who sponsors the Angel Tree Network? In our case, we had no idea who was sponsoring the network until after we bought the gifts. It turns out that the Angel Tree Network was created by Prison Fellowship Ministries. Prison Fellowship Ministries is a nonprofit ministry that helps transforms prisoners who want to get closer to Jesus Christ. They conduct ministry inside prisons, offering prayer, guidance and Bible study amongst those who want to turn their lives around.

What Prison Fellowship Ministries found was that there were a lot of fathers and mothers who realized their mistakes but had children that were left on the outside with one less parent to care for them. In order to show support, Prison Fellowship Ministries created the Angel Tree Network in 1982 where a prisoner can have a gift donated to a child in his or her name. Statistics at that time showed that a child who has a parent in prison was six times more likely to get in trouble with the law than other children.

We learned through our Angel Tree Network coordinator that Ken and Jenny's father was incarcerated a number of years ago and they watched the cops come in and arrest him. It was a traumatic experience for them because they knew where he was going and that he wouldn't be back for a long time. But their father wanted to let them know he still cared about them, so he joined the Prison Fellowship Ministries and requested those gifts.

How exactly do you participate in the Angel Tree Network? You can go to a church and see if they are participating in the Angel Tree Network. The Salvation Army also lists local churches that participate. You find their gift tree and pick the angel-shaped requests that list the boy or girl's age and interests and then you buy whatever gifts you want for them.

Some coordinators give the option for them to deliver the gifts for you, or you can deliver them in person just as my family did. We spoke with the coordinator who was given permission by the children's mother for us to deliver the gifts to her address. We knocked on the door and met these two beautiful children. They had no idea what was in our bags. When their mother told us they knew where their dad was, we told the kids that their father asked us to deliver these gifts to them. Kevin's eyes grew very wide and Jenny started smiling from ear to ear. They were very excited to know that their father was still thinking of them.

By participating in the Angel Tree Network, you can do a service to children who had nothing to do with their parent's incarceration. A prisoner who is thinking about his kids is already on the right path to redemption. Donating to the Angel Tree Network means you've helped at least two people in the world.