“There's no bigger soft spot than your children,” he says.

While ministering to incarcerated parents, Carmelo encourages parents who may have given up on connecting with their children to sign up for Prison Fellowship Angel Tree^®, a program that provides Christmas gifts to kids in the name of their mom or dad in prison, plus other opportunities, like summer camps, throughout the year. Carmelo is passionate about the hope that Angel Tree can bring families because he knows what it feels like to be both an incarcerated dad and a child with an absent parent.

Two decades ago, long before he became a chaplain, Carmelo was a young father in prison facing a potential life sentence. After years of running a major drug trafficking enterprise in Philadelphia and a lengthy pursuit by federal authorities, he was finally arrested.

“I remember the first postcard that I got [in prison] was from my daughter,” Carmelo says. “She traced her hand in it, and she said, ‘Dad, I miss you. I want you to come home,’ and that's when it hit me. In my cell, I buckled to my knees and sobbed.”

Carmelo made a vow that day to be the best father he could be. Until that point, lavishing his daughter with gifts was the only way he knew how to express his love. Carmelo didn’t realize that what she valued the most was to have a relationship with him.

“She really wanted to spend more time with me,” he says. “I'm coming from a home where there's no father, so I'm not taught this.”

Indeed, Carmelo’s upbringing didn’t prepare him for fatherhood, but it did prepare him for a life of crime.

This cycle of abuse continued until Carmelo’s parents separated and his father left the house. Although this separation brought relief from the violence, it also resulted in Carmelo’s family collapsing into extreme poverty. Carmelo’s mother struggled to provide for her children, often surviving on the charity of neighbors.

Carmelo’s dad showed no interest in continuing a relationship with his son, even though he still lived in the Bronx. As he entered his teenage years, Carmelo was consumed with anger at his father’s abandonment and increasingly frustrated with being poor.

"I had the worn-out sneakers, the worn-out clothes," he says. "I was always being made fun of. It was rough. When you grow up [like this], the streets will give you a good reason to go out there and chase money."

Carmelo soon decided that crime was the quickest way out of poverty. He began robbing local stores with a BB gun, later graduating to using real firearms and committing bigger crimes. In the mid-1980s, Carmelo started selling drugs. This was the time when crack cocaine was introduced to the area, leading to an explosion of addiction in the Bronx, where drug use was already widespread.

"What I saw that drug do to people just left me dumbfounded," he says. "I literally had guys I grew up with, I had their parents coming to me to buy drugs."

At 18, Carmelo had established himself as a significant player in the neighborhood crime scene. He made new connections who introduced him to the world of white-collar crime. He began making large amounts of money, but the risk of violence and death was always around the corner.

Carmelo got deeper into drug trafficking after marrying a Colombian woman whose brothers imported illegal substances on a massive scale. Working with his in-laws, Carmelo became a major distributor of narcotics in Philadelphia, where he ended up relocating his operation.

His wife gave birth to a daughter during this time, fulfilling a lifelong dream of Carmelo's.

"That was always my dream, to have a family and a wife and a house," he says.

Despite this desire, Carmelo didn't know how to be a faithful husband or a good father. He was constantly hustling between New York and Philly. He would visit his daughter on weekends, bringing her hundreds of dollars' worth of toys, but neglected to spend any time with her. It wasn't until he was incarcerated years later that Carmelo understood how much he had taken for granted.

This fruitful ministry soon caught the attention of the director of chaplaincy at the Philadelphia Department of Prisons, who offered Carmelo a job as a chaplain. Carmelo was shocked. He had been certain that his criminal record would prevent him from ever serving in such a role.

"I was like, 'So I'm going to get paid for this? Like, this is my job now?'" Carmelo asked in disbelief.

Carmelo served as the chaplain for Hispanic prisoners for many years and eventually took over as director of chaplaincy when his boss retired. In this current role, he is focused on supporting his staff and ministering to the spiritual needs of over 7,000 prisoners.

Prison Fellowship Angel Tree is one of the tools that Carmelo uses to encourage prisoners to build positive relationships with their families. He also goes above and beyond helping parents register their children and gets personally involved in purchasing and delivering gifts to dozens of children every December.

“When Christmas comes around, if you walk into my house, you’d think you're in Santa's workshop,” he says.

On his own time, Carmelo helps the families of prisoners with other needs beyond Christmas. He works with Philadelphia area food banks to supply groceries to the families of prisoners who are facing food insecurity.

“Whenever someone here says, ‘I don't have food in my house,’… I end up at their house knocking with four, five, six, seven, eight boxes of food from one of the pantries and maybe some of the stuff that I might have bought that the pantry can't offer … milk, bread, eggs, whatever.”

This personal outreach has made a significant impact on the people Carmelo ministers to. He says that many prisoners have expressed a desire to change their lives after they see the help he has given to their families.

"Disregarding ethnicity and religion, we're looking at them as people, as human beings in need," he says. "Just by doing that, some of these guys in here are impacted and provoked to change. They're like, … ‘My so-called friends didn't go to my house … but you guys did. And you guys don't even know me.’ That's love.”

After his release from prison, Carmelo remarried, became a father to a stepson, and then had three more children. He is now a father of five, including his older daughter, and he greatly enjoys being involved in his children's lives. He talks to his kids about his past struggles and encourages them to make positive life choices. As a chaplain, Carmelo uses his platform to encourage incarcerated parents to be similarly honest with their children.

“I always tell everyone to do their best and not allow their children to inherit their past,” he says. “Make them aware of your mistakes, but also, make them more aware of your comeback … You made a mistake, and you might have fallen, but you got back up.”