FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Children of inmates at the Women's Community Correctional Center in Kailua joined their moms yesterday for lunch and various Halloween events. Weetonia Dickerson, left, and her mom, Jayne Oravec, played with hula hoops. The Kids Day was sponsored by Wellspring Covenant Church in Halawa Valley. CLICK FOR LARGE
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Kids join inmate moms for Halloween festivities
Costumes and games make for quality time at the Kailua facility
Sometimes the words "I love you" were spoken.
Other times, even if the words weren't said, the meaning was clear in the eyes of 75 children and 40 incarcerated mothers who celebrated Halloween together yesterday at the Women's Community Correctional Center.
"Kids Day" at the Kailua facility looked like a day at the park with a Halloween theme. Children up to age 12 were running, jumping, playing carnival-type games and munching on treats.
But the most important thing they were doing was reconnecting with their mothers.
The Kids Day program has been offered at the Kailua facility for 11 years, but the event has blossomed over the last five years under the sponsorship of the Wellspring Covenant Church, said WCCC recreation specialist Larson Medina. Starting next year, the group Keiki O Ka Aina will alternate sponsoring the events with Wellspring, Medina said.
Four to six times a year, usually with a holiday theme, the women prisoners get a longer-than-normal visit with their kids. No other adult relatives attend, so the focus is on the children, Medina said.
Many of the children wore Halloween costumes, which made for humorous Polaroid photographs with their moms. Photos went home and stayed with the mothers, so everyone has a memento of the day.
Seven of 31-year-old Joyce Simeona-Agoo's eight children surrounded her yesterday on a mat in the shade. There almost wasn't enough of her to go around, as 3-year-old Electra, dressed as a bumble bee, competed for attention with sisters 4-year-old Faith, a princess, and 7-year-old Mersaydeez, a genie.
Son Kekoa, 11, wasn't shy about just sitting by his mom, holding onto her. Sisters Diamond, 5, and Kuuipo, 9, buzzed away to play a game with church volunteers and other children, but they'd be back.
Nearby inmate Janna Miller watched the family scene. Her own children, ages 2 and 4, weren't able to come this time.
"This is beautiful. This is what we look forward to," Miller said as she cradled and bottle-fed Simeona-Agoo's youngest child, Miguel Jr., 5 months, who was born while his mother was incarcerated.
Simeona-Agoo said the earliest she'll be eligible for parole on her 10-year sentence for welfare fraud will be 2009. The children are cared for by their father, Miguel Agoo, and a nephew, Kaeo Agoo, she said.
"Their daddy takes good care of them," Miller said.
The games included tossing rolled socks into a wooden tic-tac-toe grid and other homespun contests for prizes.
A popular game was a race dubbed "tractor tread," in which one adult and two or more children got into a giant cardboard loop made out of refrigerator boxes taped together. If the group inside the loop could coordinate their actions, they moved forward like the tread of a tank.
"It's cool," 11-year-old Armina Lono reported to her mother, Donna Lono, after her team won a tractor-tread race.
Lono, who is serving time for driving a stolen car, said the Kids Day is important for her and her five children, ages 3 to 11. "It means a lot to me because I don't get to see them that often," she said. "They get really excited."
Jayne Oravec's daughter Weetonia, 5, had trouble sleeping Friday night in anticipation of seeing her for the first time in a month, Oravec said.
Oravec gave Weetonia "angel-flights" by lying on her back on the ground, putting her feet on her daughter's stomach and extending her legs overhead. When that got old, the girl curled up in her mother's lap.
"I think it's great that children have quality time with their mothers," said church volunteer Helen Nagata. "I think it's really important."
"The kids don't see the wires," inmate Miller said, gesturing to the surrounding chain link fence with concertina wire. "They see their moms."
