Angela Patton is the director of Camp Diva, an organization that helps empower young women. In a TED Talk, she explains how her organization arranged a father-daughter dance for 16 men and their 18 daughters – inside the county jail! The dance gave the men a rare opportunity to show their daughters how much they cared by dancing with them, pulling out their chairs for a meal, and giving them their undivided attention. The scene was so touching, Patton says, that “even the guards cried.”
Young women with a father behind bars desperately need to understand that they matter to their dads, because a girl’s relationship with her father helps determine how she will view herself, and how she will think she deserves to be treated by other men in her life. Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program also helps connects absent fathers with their daughters, demonstrating that in spite of the mistakes fathers might have made, their daughters are still loved, valued, and full of unlimited potential.