Roberta Bell - "It was the right thing to do"

This morning I read a beautiful article in the Washington Post. There is way too much hate in this country... Roberta Bell's story is about love. And hope.

Prison guard lost job for taking in inmate's baby

Washington Post - "Katie Bourgeois had been incarcerated for a few months in a Louisiana prison earlier this year when she learned she was pregnant.

“I felt panicked — I didn’t have anyone who would help, and I didn’t want my baby to get sent away with Child Protective Services,” said Bourgeois, 30, who was serving time for drug charges. “I wasn’t sure what to do or where to turn.”

One morning, while inmates were lined up to receive their daily medications, a friend of Bourgeois’s approached Bell and explained the situation.

Bell, who did not know Bourgeois, said she walked right over to Bourgeois and offered to help.

“I knew it was the right thing to do,” Bell said. She told Bourgeois that she’d take in the newborn for about two months while Bourgeois finished her prison time.

“I knew that God wanted me to follow my heart, and I knew I couldn’t allow a baby to go to protective services when Katie really wanted that child,” she said.

Bell also knew it violated the rules of her employment, because corrections officers are not allowed to give their personal contact information to inmates. She said she thought she might get permission under the circumstances."

Of course, she was fired by the privately run Louisana Transition Center for Women, from a job that she had worked and enjoyed for eight years (four at this particular corrections facility) because she broke the rules. She was compassionate to another human being.

Baby Kayson was born on May 17.

"Bourgeois was sent back to prison to complete the remaining two months of her sentence, which she was serving for using drugs while on parole, she said. She gave the hospital permission for Bell to get her son."

“I knew that Miss Bell really cared, and that Kayson would be in good hands,” she said, adding that she wasn’t allowed to see or talk to Bell.

Roberta Bell - “So many of them have been used and abused and have had hard lives on the streets,” she said. “I found that if I showed them a little love, it went a long way. I sensed that Katie was a good person who had just made some bad choices in her life.”

Katie Bourgeois - “How can I thank this woman? She’s a stranger who showed so much love,” Bourgeois said. “If not for this angel, I don’t know what I would have done. I feel like I’ve found a friend forever in Miss Bell.”