50 Dozen Cookies
50 dozen cookies to the four-day retreat.
There are over 1,300 men in white incarcerated* at the Torres Unit**. Each volunteer was required to bring 50 dozen cookies to the four-day retreat I attended inside the prison so that there would be enough cookies for each man in white incarcerated in Torres to receive one dozen cookies on the Saturday of the retreat.
There were cookie restrictions. Cookies considered acceptable and that traveled well were Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, Ginger, Peanut Butter and Molasses. No Sugar cookies as they broke easily during transportation.
Cookies were to be between 2 and 2 ½ inches in diameter and not over ½ inch thick so they could fit through cell slots. No icing, sugar, sprinkles, M&Ms, candy kisses or any other type of coating, topping or decoration on the outside of the cookies (though they could be mixed into the cookie dough). Men in white can be very resourceful with using materials for purposes the materials were not intended to be used for.
I think every friend I had in San Antonio baked a dozen cookies for me.
Clarence (oh, it helps to have someone you know and love serve as a volunteer with you on your first retreat) and I along with an officer and a man in white delivered the cookies to the cells in several dormitories. A dormitory looks like what you have seen on tv—two stories, long straight hallways, cement floors, iron bars—only it is starker to see the iron bars and cells in person. The cells themselves were two-men cells. There was a toilet in the room, a small sink on the wall, two small desks and bunks that folded out of the wall. There must have been chairs though I don’t recall them. No heating and no air conditioning.
We hand delivered most of the cookies saying “God bless you!” Some men returned the blessing. A few said nothing. Several, without looking at us, said leave them at the door. And some did not acknowledge our presence.
*Torres Unit is a Texas state prison near Hondo, Texas.
**In Texas prisons, all inmates wear white.