Annual Prayer Breakfast a success
The 2023 Carlsbad Prayer Breakfast was an incredible success, thanks to the hard work and generosity of so many individuals. The decision was made early on to make the event open to the public this year, but that took sponsorship. Special thanks to the title sponsor, SB Energy, and the gold sponsor, Oasis Church, as well as all of or wonderful silver sponsors.
A very special thank you to the Carlsbad Community Foundation, the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors, Carniceria San Juan De Los Lagos and Nichols Printing, who donated all of the printing costs.
As you can imagine, a lot of work goes into something like the prayer breakfast. The chair of the committee, Gabe Rubio (Oasis), did an excellent job keeping everything together. We had a great committee consisting of Pastor Kevin Pence (First Baptist), Cheyenne Methola (Oasis), Pastor Scott Meador (First Methodist Church of Carlsbad), Pastor Destry McDonald (Landmark Baptist Church), Father Juan Carlos Ramirez (San Jose Roman Catholic Church), Dr. Judy Lim (First Baptist Church), Jeni Dugan (First Methodist Church of Carlsbad), Pastor Brad Coates (Carlsbad First Assembly) and Pastor Daniel Armstrong (Epworth Methodist Fellowship). It was a wonderful group of people to work with throughout the year, and we very much enjoyed the experience.
Thanks as well to everyone who helped with our program. Pastor Coates was Master of Ceremonies, and we also had Adan Rodriguez and the Veterans Honor Guard (Elizabeth Aguilar and Gabby McGary) help us with our opening ceremony, as did the Carlsbad High School Choir.
Prayers were led by Father Juan Carlos Ramirez, Samuel and Crystal Mullins (New Beginnings Church of God), Ryan and Serina Nelson (Church Street Church of the Nazarene), John Burke (New Song Christian Fellowship), and Kevin Pence (First Baptist Church). A very special thank you to our keynote presenter this year, Danny Gokey, who did an outstanding job.
The Prayer Breakfast has actually been around for some time now, since Walter Gerrells was mayor. As some point, the annual event stopped.
Early in my time as mayor, Ron and Echo Griffith approached me about wanting to restart the prayer breakfast. Ron put in an incredible amount of work to run the annual event, and many Carlsbad residents will recall him stopping by their office to drop off tickets.
The prayer breakfast didn’t happen during the COVID-19 shutdown era. Sadly, Ron passed away in 2020. However, last year, we met with a group of local ministers and community members to discuss getting the breakfast going again. They’ve really stepped up and have donated many hours toward this event over the past two years.
We know Ron and Echo would be very proud of everything they’ve accomplished.
This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Annual Prayer Breakfast a success
