THE trailer where visitors are processed at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility can be a bleak and forbidding place. Family members who come to visit inmates wait on long wooden benches that line the peeling linoleum floors. Large metal signs on the walls warn visitors that an electronic drug detection system may be in use; others caution that those wearing inappropriate clothing will be turned away. Prison guards stand behind a large barrier, checking forms and deciding whether visitors may proceed to the next security screening.
In the midst of all this dreariness is a tiny island of pleasantness. Marion Farrell, who has been volunteering at Sing Sing for more than 25 years, stands beside a small table covered with a blue tablecloth decorated with a design of daisies. On the table is some basic breakfast food — coffee, tea, hot chocolate, juice, cereal and muffins. A sign in both English and Spanish announces that breakfast is free, courtesy of the Ossining Prison Ministry.
To understand why something as simple as a free breakfast is a big deal under these circumstances, you need to think about what the visitors have probably gone through to get this far, said Ms. Farrell, the executive director of the prison ministry.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/nyregion/westchester/28farrellwe.html?smid=pl-share