Inmates at Elmwood craft 310 toys for kids in need
by Ian Bauer
Posted: 12/10/2008 03:34:33 PM PST

A group of Elmwood Correctional Facility inmates could put Santa's workshop to shame. Behind the jail's walls and barbed wire, several inmates have shown their Christmas spirit by crafting scores of handmade wooden toys for the area's neediest children.

Last Thursday, a contingent of U.S. Marine Corps Reserve members made their annual Toys for Tots campaign stop, picking up all manner of wooden playthings from trucks and cars, airplanes and rocking horses, to benches and boxes, toy chests and tool boxes.

"I built about 35 toys," 22-year-old inmate Alex-Rey Badilla said. "My personal goal was 50."

Serving time for a DUI offense, Badilla showed off several toy trucks he had created out of two-by-fours. He believed his work was a way of giving back to the community.

"It's been really a blessing to learn a new skill," he added.

Juan Rodriguez, a resident of Mexico also doing time for drunken driving, sought something to stay occupied.

"I decided to get into this to make my time go faster," he said.

But others working on the toys wanted to see the end result even if it meant staying behind bars a little longer.

Inmate Jeffery Dowell, a Palo Alto resident doing three months' time for theft, was granted his release from jail the day before, Dec. 3. But Dowell wanted to see his work, especially on several wooden toy horses, completed.

"I wanted to stay," he said. "I worked hard on a lot of these toys, and this is better than I expected this morning."

That morning, Marines and inmates like Dowell boxed, wrapped up and loaded toys on a truck bound for distribution. The toys surrounded by power tools and equipment like chop saws, miter saws, scroll saws, speed drill presses and large belt sanders were laid out on tables inside the wood shop, a program run for years by Milpitas Adult Education.

Edward Flores, chief of the Santa Clara County Department of Correction, commended the work of the inmates and the Marines that morning.

"This program is a way of giving back to the community and putting a few smiles on a few kids' faces," Flores said.

But the annual Toys of Tots effort also had special significance this year. It marked the absence of Elmwood's longtime wood shop instructor Gene Medlock, who died in January. Elmwood's industries shop has been renamed the "Gene Medlock Memorial Cabinet Shop."

Jon Del Conte, an Elmwood wood shop instructor who worked with Medlock for 15 years, commended his late friend for his years of commitment to the program.

"They didn't come any better," Del Conte said of Medlock, a former Navy machinist who died at his Los Gatos home at the age of 77.

Despite the loss, Del Conte maintained the woodshop program would continue to be useful for inmates.

"It keeps these guys occupied during the day," he said, adding that they will become more familiar with woodworking.

Besides toys, Del Conte said the woodshop also contracts out its low-cost services to City of San Jose and Valley Medical Center to build storage cabinets, desks and other furniture.

The woodshop also constructed a performance stage now being used in San Jose's Christmas in the Park event.

"But for the last two months, the toys went to the top of the list," Del Conte said, noting more than 310 toys were made this year. "The best we ever did was 500 (toys), but the quality was lacking."

Since 1991, the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots Program has created more than 65 million toys nationwide. Since starting the program at Elmwood eight years ago, more than 3,000 toys have been delivered to Santa Clara County families.

Gunnery Sgt. Antonio Uriegas said the Marines coordinate 80 Toys for Tots events within a 3,100-square-mile radius in the Bay Area.

Ellie