By Dee Camp
Chronicle staff

     The Rev. Bob Baggett, chaplain for the Okanogan County jail, is seeking help with his annual mission to provide Christmas gifts to people incarcerated at the jail.
     Each year he provides about 200 packages to inmates, no matter if they're Christian, Jewish, Muslim, some other religion or of no religion, he said.
     "It's touching to see how effective it is with the inmates," he said, recalling some who have hugged their gifts.
     "They said they never believed someone would give a gift to them," said Baggett, 78.
     He said the jail population is about 40 percent Hispanic, almost 60 percent Caucasian, 20 percent female and many inmates are young. Because of the jail's turnover rate, it serves about 275 individuals per month, he added.
     Baggett said he started the Christmas gift program 10 or 12 years ago.
     "At 78 I still have a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of hope that some of that love rubs off on these guys," he said.
     He recalled his own youth during the Depression and growing up on a farm.
     "We never knew there was a Depression," he said. "At Christmas we'd give (home-)canned goods to relatives, and chicken, turkey, pickles and so on. People from the city were in awe of how well we ate."
     He added that he'd like to see a soup kitchen or some sort of halfway house in the county to help people out during hard times and cold times.
     That might cut down on the jail population, he said, adding that some people know just what crime to commit in order to get a few months in jail to avoid winter's cold.
     In the meantime, Baggett said he's trying to fill 200 packages for the inmates.
     Suggested clothing items include large tube socks, men's briefs sizes 34-40, plain white T-shirts in large and extra large sizes, sport bras sizes 32-44, women's panties sizes 5-10, women's socks, thermal underwear in large and extra large, stocking caps and gloves.
     Other suggested items include table games such as Monopoly, chess, dominoes, Scrabble, Risk, checkers, Battleship, Yahtzee, dice, jigsaw puzzles and plastic cribbage boards; food items such as oranges, hard candy, candy bars, cookies, pepperoni sticks and beef jerky, and supplies such as lined notebook paper, computer paper, hair ties, colored pencils, colored sketch paper, envelopes, big erasers, plastic combs, plastic hair picks, reading glasses (100-400 power), Bibles, Christmas literature, fiction and non-fiction paperbacks, dictionaries, sudoku puzzles, crossword puzzles, word searches, coloring books, colored string rolls and so on.
     Donations of cash or checks also are welcome, Baggett said. Items may be donated at the jail in Okanogan.
     Baggett can be reached at 422-7230 Ext. 7562.