Prison inmates caroling “Jingle Bells” to nursing home patients proved to be a pivotal experience for the offenders, the patients and the county community service program that brought them together.

An inaugural visit to nursing homes this winter was so successful that, beginning this month, interaction with nursing home patients has become a regular activity offered to people court ordered to perform community service hours.

Community service participants — those who are in the Butler County Prison as well as those on probation — will sing patriotic or gospel songs to home residents and challenge them at board games.

“Our budget for activities is limited,” said Sue Murray, administrator at Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 107 Sunnyview Circle. “This is a great way to offer additional programs for our residents.”

Sunnyview, first to integrate regular community service activities, had a positive experience with the carolers.

“This touched so many residents,” Murray said. “They loved it.”

Equally affected were the singers.

“It really gave me a new perspective,” said Michael Gold.

Gold, 39, spent the holidays behind bars on his second drunken-driving conviction. He signed up for the community service in hopes that performing useful tasks, such as collecting litter from city streets and landscaping for nonprofit organizations, would take his mind off his own mounting problems.

About a month into Gold's 90-day prison stint, the idea of Christmas caroling was presented to him and his fellow community service participants. At first, Gold said he thought the idea was “a little weird.”

But Gold, a muscular construction worker from Hilliards, said he was willing to give it a go. And he figured on standing in the back of the group quietly mouthing the lyrics.

Gold and a dozen others practiced a repertoire of favorite holiday tunes on breaks from other community service projects.

“I was kind of shy about it. I never sang like that, not even in school,” Gold said, noting his fellow carolers refused to allow him to fade into the background.

About a week later, Gold donned a Santa hat and performed.

“I was a little nervous,” Gold said. “But the patients made it easy. They smiled. They sang along. They lit up, and they applauded.”

Gold said the experience helped him realize his life isn't so bad.

“No matter how bad you have it, there are always people who have it worse,” Gold said.

Butler County President Judge Thomas Doerr said the county supports community service initiatives because they've been proven to lower the chance an offender will commit more crimes.

“A lot of offenders have problems, like feeling isolated from their community or they have esteem issues,” Doerr said. “When you force them to do community service they realize they are a part of the community, and they're less likely to offend against it.”

Programs such as caroling in nursing homes, Doerr said, make an even bigger impression because the participants see an immediate impact “from something they have done .... and the light bulb goes on.”

Another caroler, Tim Coll of Cranberry Township, said he saw gratitude in the eyes of the audience at the same time he was feeling the same emotion.

“(Caroling) took the blow off missing my family,” Coll said.

Coll said it wasn't lost on him that, while he was feeling sorry for himself being separated from family, many of the nursing home patients had no family left.

Coll, serving a six-month sentence for receiving stolen property, has two children waiting for him to return home.

“I know a lot of people say they will never go back to prison,” said Coll, a 53-year-old first-time offender. “But I mean it. I'll never be back.”

Jim Switzer, Butler County Community Service director, plans daily activities people such as Coll and Gold may choose to fulfill community service obligations.

All DUI offenders are sentenced to serve some time with Switzer on one of the days the group picks up roadside trash.

But for the other court- ordered community service hours, people may chose between Switzer's offerings and other activities in the community approved by their probation officers.

Switzer said nursing home visits will not be a daily choice. They will be scheduled once or twice a month, while regularly accepted activities such as landscaping and handiwork will fill out the Monday-through-Friday roster.

The group still does a lot of roadside trash collection. A recent visit to New Castle Road, for example, produced 150 bags of trash.

Sometimes a group visits the homes of approved veterans to do small chores. Sometimes participants pitch in at municipal locations in Clay or Penn townships.

Convicts who have committed violent or sexual offenses are screened out of the more sensitive projects.

“Every project we do must benefit everybody involved,” said Switzer. “If everybody isn't winning, it's not worth doing.”

Last week, the group painted walls in the Salvation Army building in the city. Chad Caldwell, 28, of Butler said painting is something he has done before.

But singing publicly? For Caldwell, a tattooed paver by trade, this past holiday was a first.

Caldwell, who still must finish out a yearlong stint on his fourth DUI conviction, said he'd willingly do it again.

He related an anecdote from one of the outings: A woman in her 20s, confined to a wheelchair, fluttered her eyes as his group sang.

“Like maybe she recognized the song. I think it was ‘Jingle Bells,'” Caldwell said. “Her mother told us it was the first time the woman had opened her eyes in a really, really long time. Her mother was so excited.”

The group sang the song a second time, just for the lady in the wheelchair.

“It was a weird feeling,” Caldwell said. “I'm not sure what I'd call it ... emotional?”