Topeka ? For some women, the fact they won’t be spending Christmas with their children hits home when they choose a gift to send from prison.

For about 30 years, the Salvation Army has helped prison inmates send a gift and card to their children age 12 and under.

Sarabeth Chambers, 24, an inmate at Topeka Correctional Facility, said Monday that she hadn’t thought about missing Christmas until she chose the gifts the Salvation Army would send to her four children in early December.

This will be her first Christmas away from her children.

“It’ll be harder when Christmas comes around,” Chambers said. For now, she focuses on doing her time.

Earnest Jones, of the Correctional Services Division of the Salvation Army based in Kansas City, Mo., said the Salvation Army had provided the program for about 30 years because inmates were grateful for the opportunity to brighten their children’s Christmas.

“It’s helpful to the children mostly,” Jones said. “They suffer in the absence of their parents.”

Capt. Paul Duskin of the Topeka Salvation Army said the program helped maintain the family bond. He said 384 inmates at the prison had children.

At the Topeka Correctional Facility on Monday evening, women passed through the gymnasium in shifts and were offered catalogs from which to select a gift for each of their children.

Duskin said donations allowed the Salvation Army to buy the 3,500 gifts that would be mailed to the children of inmates in Kansas and western Missouri.

Volunteers in Leavenworth will wrap and mail the presents beginning the weekend following Thanksgiving.