COUNTYWIDE : Children Get Gifts Made by Inmates

About 50 underprivileged Ventura County children scrambled to choose a Christmas toy from those displayed at the County Government Center on Tuesday, oblivious to their benefactors.

But four Ventura County Sheriff’s Department inmates, who helped sew rag dolls and mermaids or build the bright wooden rocking horses, trains and dolls’ cradles, needed no words of thanks to feel appreciated.

“Just looking at the kids’ faces changes your whole outlook,” said Sam Barukh of Newbury Park, who is serving time at the county’s Rose Valley Work Camp on drug charges. “You don’t want to do drugs anymore after this. This is real life.”

Vivian Holland, whose teen-age children are staying with her parents in Orange County while she is at the Sheriff’s Honor Farm in Ojai, said sewing the dolls reminded her of when her children were young.

“I love it,” she said. “I really do.”

The Sheriff’s Department brought the toys, inmates and children together for the fourth year as part of the program Sheriff John V. Gillespie calls Santa’s Workshop. The Sheriff’s Department plans to distribute another 400 toys to area homeless shelters this week.

The children at the Government Center, who came from two area homeless shelters, a Head-Start program and the Candelaria American Indian Council, were delighted with the colorful toys. Three-year-old Scarlett Romero and her twin sister, Rayna, of Oxnard rocked their rag dolls in new cradles.

“They’ll probably name them Stephanie,” said their mother, Nancy. “They name all their dolls Stephanie.”

Kyle Mitchell, 3, climbed atop his new, blue rocking horse to try out the saddle.

“He’s never had a toy like this before,” said his mother, Laticia Rodriguez. “I could never be able to afford one of these for Christmas.”

Inmate Robert Ramos stooped to help a child connect the cars on his wooden train. A Ventura truck driver now held at the Ojai work camp, Ramos said other inmates had told him that he would like the work.

“They were right,” he said as he watched a child with long, dark hair rock her doll in one of the cradles he had helped build. “It really feels good.”