Pamela Nates, a chaplain for a maximum security prison, works with other volunteers to pack bags of toiletries and other items for inmates at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Columbia on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — For South Carolina inmates, Easter baskets take the form of clear bags stuffed with soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, notebooks, pens, envelopes and hard candy.
Twice a year, Baptist churches across the state donate enough supplies for each of the state’s prisoners to receive a baggie of toiletries and other small items. Earlier this month, about 50 volunteers, many of them prison chaplains, packed the donations into more than 16,300 bags that went to inmates in all 21 prisons.
The bags may not seem like much to many people, but inmates look forward to them every year, volunteers said…