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Bessie Kleintob brings ‘sunshine’ into lives of prisoners at SCI Dallas

By REBECCA BRIA rbria@timesleader.com

“Sunshine” is what Bessie Kleintob is called every time she walks into the State Correctional Institute (SCI) in Dallas.

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Bessie Kleintob, 91, receives standing applause as she is honored for her volunteer service at SCI Dallas during a banquet in April.

S. JOHN WILKIN/TIMES LEADER FILE PHOTO

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The 91-year-old Huntington Mills resident helps lead a Bible study group two days a month at SCI Dallas, a medium security prison for men. And when Kleintob enters the prison’s sanctuary, the 10 to 15 men who attend the study always say, “Here comes sunshine.”

Kleintob was one of 29 volunteers honored at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections volunteer Recognition Banquet on Oct. 3 at the department’s Elizabethtown Training Academy. Although she was not in attendance, Kleintob will receive a framed letter signed by Governor Edward G. Rendell and Secretary of Corrections Jeffrey A. Beard, Ph.D.

Kleintob was also named Volunteer of the Year for 2009 at SCI Dallas. She was recognized at a dinner, cooked by the prisoners, in April at the prison’s gymnasium. She was also presented with a gold watch and a proclamation from Sen. Lisa Baker in appreciation of her work.

“I felt it wasn’t something I deserved because I was only doing what I like to do,” Kleintob said of being recognized for her volunteer efforts. “It’s a pleasure and a blessing. I get a blessing every time I go to the prison. It’s a blessing for me and for them.”

A member of Town Hill United Methodist Church, Kleintob became involved with the Yoke Fellowship Prison Ministry about five years ago when her former pastor, the Rev. Stevan Atanasoff, requested assistance in the ministry at SCI Dallas from church members. Her friend, Laura Shaffer, was also active with the group and remains a part of it.

On two Mondays a month at noon, Kleintob, Shaffer and the Rev. Atanasoff, now preaching at a church in Williamstown, lead Bible discussions in the prison’s sanctuary. The prisoners will also ask for special prayer requests for family members, especially those who have died.

Kleintob says, although the majority of the time is spent on scripture, volunteers are willing to talk about whatever is on the prisoners’ minds. Most often, she says, they ask about her health and family.

In the summer of 2008, Kleintob was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent 38 treatments of radiation. She is now cancer free.

“I missed it terribly when I was sick and couldn’t go,” she said of her prison ministry work. “I don’t see them as prisoners. I see them as people.”’

It is faith and determination that keep Kleintob pushing along in life despite many challenges. Aside from her recent illness, she lost her two sons within a year of each other. Her son, Derr, died in 2007 and her other son, Jon, passed away in 2008. Kleintob’s husband, Sheldon, died in 1991.

She also has two daughters: Gail Whitebread, of Blakeslee, and Shelley Russin, of Kingston.

Kleintob has always been an active member of her church. When she was younger, she would often bake and solicit people to bake for church festivals and dinners. She also helped work a stand the church had each year at the Bloomsburg Fair.

Once Kleintob gets to know the prisoners, they will converse with her about crimes they have committed and their sentences. Some of them have converted to Christianity while in prison while others admit to having been taught right from wrong while growing up but straying at some point in their lives.

Even though a few of the prisoners in the group are serving life sentences, Kleintob has never felt afraid around them.

“I have not been afraid since the first time I went,” she said. “I know that God is watching over me in the first place. It doesn’t mean anything that they lock the doors behind me.”

Kleintob will remain active in the prison ministry for as long as she can.

“I think it gives them hope and I think they think we do not think of them as prisoners, but as friends,” she said of the incarcerated men. “(For me it’s) just knowing that you’re bringing them some light and some sunshine.”