"Prison Chaplain Service Celebrates 85 Years"
Published: September 24, 2005
Sometimes 75-year-old Cecil McFarland takes his wife with him to prison. Recently, he took his son.
McFarland spends a lot of his time in Virginia’s prison system. He’s the executive director of the Chaplain Service of the Churches of Virginia, a nonprofit organization that provides chaplains to Virginia’s prisons and juvenile correctional centers. A United Methodist minister and former Navy chaplain, McFarland tries to make sure inmates have a chance to pray, study the Bible and, hopefully, get their lives going in a better direction.
“When a person is in trouble in the Navy or in prison, the first person they want to see is the chaplain,“ McFarland said. “When someone is in trouble in the church, the last person they want to see is the pastor.“
Yesterday, the Chaplain Service held an anniversary celebration at Chamberlayne Heights United Methodist Church in Henrico County. Among those attending was Richmond native Hasan K. Zarif.
Earlier this week, Zarif talked about the impact the Chaplain Service had on his life.
Even though he was raised by strict and religious parents, Zarif landed in prison at age 21 and stayed there for the next 16 years. He was released more than 10 years ago, but he can still remember the names of the chaplains and volunteers who worked with him to turn his life around.
He now returns the favor by volunteering five to six hours a week and spending thousands of dollars each year traveling to prisons around the state where he serves as a lay minister.
While the Chaplain Service was founded in 1920 by members of seven different Christian denominations, today it advocates for the religious needs and rights of prisoners of all religious backgrounds and affiliations.
A few years ago, the state Department of Corrections agreed to help fund the service through money raised from items purchased by inmates at prison commissaries. About half of the organization’s roughly $1 million budget will come from those commissary funds.
“No one is keeping records of how many felons there are in Virginia,” Henderson said after the meeting. “Not even the Department of Corrections.”
The Chaplain Service’s payroll includes about a dozen full-time chaplains and many more part-time staffers. The service also depends on volunteers.
With more prisoners released back into society every day, McFarland said, it’s imperative to provide them with support while they are still in prison to help them better integrate into the outside world.
“The chaplain is the key person to help bring about that change in a person’s life,“ he said. .