"I'm so fully aware of what separation from your mother means," Fox says. "I longed for that voice for many years. In my 30s, I found my caretaker, and the sound of her voice stunned me."

Judy Fox, left, watches as Maria adds a note to her child's storybook, The Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck, that was read onto a tape.

On a recent Saturday morning, Fox joined five other Austin women for the 100-mile drive to Gatesville, Texas. Their destination: the Lane Murray Unit of the Texas prison system, home to 1,250 female inmates. The mothers, grandmothers and one great-grandmother, carrying armloads of children's books and tape recorders, spent the day taping offenders as they read the storybooks to their children. The tapes, together with the books, are then mailed to the women's children.

The Storybook Project, developed in the 1990s by Lutheran Social Services of Illinois, took root in Texas in 2002 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Austin. Led by parishioner Judith Dullnig, an energetic and persuasive wardrobe consultant, the project quickly mushroomed to include volunteers from Temple Beth Shalom, where Judy Fox is a member, and Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Austin. The Texas Baptist Women's Convention has donated 800 books, tapes and mailers.

"This is the first parish I've been in with as extensive a prison ministry," says the Rev. Elizabeth Zarelli Turner, St. Mark's assistant rector. On this mid-September day, the volunteers drive to Gatesville through flat farmland, dotted with simple barns and grazing cattle, for their monthly appointment with women who have been chosen for their good behavior in prison.

Over hamburgers and fries at MacDonald's, Dullnig, a stylish tornado in pink jeans and pearls, briefs the women. Three of the six will tape offenders for the first time, with a required fourhour training session under their belts. The volunteers say they stay committed to their purpose.

"We are there to focus on the taping of the stories and the mother's message to her child," says Dullnig. "We want the mother to connect with her child and the child to connect with his mother." ."

For Carroll Foley of Good Shepherd, a mother of five, this is trip number five.

"The mothers are so young and in such a pickle," says Foley. "One woman in tears told me she hadn't seen her child in two years. The distance – it's a way to bridge it. That's what keeps me going back. … When the women go home, their children won't feel like they are perfect strangers."

Volunteers bring hope

Red, purple and yellow zinnias surround the entrance to the prison, a fusion of Army barracks and junior college. Curls of concertina wire swirl atop heavy chain-link fences. Security cameras hang from dormitories painted a soft, pea green. In this female-only prison, the average stay is 10 years. The average age is 30. Crimes range from credit card abuse to murder. Seventy percent of the offenders have children younger than 18; 54 percent of prisoners' children never have visited their mothers.

Warden Nancy Botkin, a 22-year prison veteran, greets Dullnig with a hug. Dressed in a salmon-colored pants suit, Botkin leads the women through gate after gate, up the quadrangle past the education building and yellow rose bushes, to the Chapel of Hope. Chaplains' offices and classrooms line the hallway leading to the chapel. An offender's life-sized mural, reminiscent of the Garden of Eden, its gate opening outward, fills the front wall.

For Botkin, the Storybook Project and parenting classes are tools to help break the cycle of recidivism that sees one out of every five children of incarcerated parents land in prison. "All of our mothers regret their parenting styles. If we capture them while they're clean and sober, many times we can get through to them," says Botkin. "I have hope for all of them."

In a classroom off the hallway, 23 women in white, two-piece scrubs sit in a circle talking with Chaplain Karon Featherston and Anne Mooney, a prison social worker who volunteers to teach parenting classes while the women take turns taping books. Learning how to be a good parent is key to feeling capable and effective as an employee and good citizen, Mooney says.

"There's a direct connection between feeling competent as a mother and a parent and staying out of prison. Change starts with a change in beliefs and perception of themselves," says Mooney. "In rehabilitation, we teach the women to do one thing well, and then we build on that; this helps keep them out of prison."

Messages filled with love

As the volunteers join the circle, the offenders introduce themselves, often expressing through tears their deep gratitude.

"My three children have always been my life," says Tammy. "I'm a soccer mom. This is the first time I've ever been away from them. I've been looking forward to this."

Yen, a young mother of two, adds, "This will be the first time since I've been here that my kids will hear my voice."

Gloria, a mother of four, whose "Amens" pepper the introductions, explains that she will read young daughter, hoping that she will "know I still love her, and that my baby will get a chance to smile, just from the sound of my voice.

"God bless you all for being here," she adds. Featherston is uniquely aware of the women's concern for their children. "These ladies love their children, just as much as we love ours," she says. "The people in the free world think, well, just lock them away, they couldn't have loved their child or they wouldn't be in here. Things happen. Things happen."

As they choose from books like The Velveteen Rabbit and In the Night Kitchen , Dullnig orchestrates a moving procession that takes each offender to one of five rooms, where volunteers at desks wait with tape recorders. "It's all about caring and giving," says Dullnig. "We can make a difference."

In one room, a white eyelet angel wearing pearls and starched lace wings hangs on the wall near the desk. As the offender concludes her story, she speaks to her child: "I love you. Make sure you say your prayers tonight."

Families of offenders report poignant children's reactions to the sound of their mothers' voices: They carry their tapes around, talk back to them and go to sleep listening to them.

For first-time volunteer Felicia Kutchey, a young mother and member of Temple Beth Shalom, helping children feel love from the mothers they cannot hug or see makes all the sense in the world.

"I was overwhelmed, to get a chance to do something like this," she says. "Anything for a child. I'm coming back every time." Since Sept. 1, 2003 , when 62 of 153 Texas prison chaplains lost their jobs, the chaplain-to- offender ratio has fallen from one per 1,000 offenders (preferred over "inmates" by prison officials) to one for every 2,000. With fewer chaplains, volunteers' time and money are needed more than ever to maintain spiritual contact with Texas' 150,000 offenders.

"We're hoping the faith community will step up to the plate and help," says Don Keil, assistant director for Religious Programs for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. "Volunteers help with our mission: to give offenders new lives, new values, new morals."

For Ed Davis, St. Stephen's, Huntsville, coordinator of Restorative Justice Ministry for the Diocese of Texas, the Storybook Project is timely and sorely needed.

"[With the cutbacks], all we're doing is holding and punishing," Davis says. "If not for volunteers, nothing would be going on."

Officials at the National Crime Prevention Council, an educational nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., agree. The council's mission is to enable people to create safer and more caring communities by addressing the causes of crime and violence and reducing the opportunities for crime to occur.

Recently, the Storybook Project ministry was included in its first document, Fifty Strategies for Faith and Justice Collaboration .

To volunteer or for more information, contact Judith Dullnig at 512-418-1296 or e-mail jjdull@earthlink.net