Hope and Unity For Breakfast As Mayor’s Interfaith Prayer Event Reunites the Community

Invoking themes of hope, resilience, and unity, hundreds of local residents and scores of local and faith-based leaders joined nonprofit Friends in Deed and Mayor Victor Gordo at the Pasadena Convention Center Thursday morning for the 49th Annual Pasadena Mayor’s Interfaith Prayer Breakfast.

The event, like so many others held recently, was the first since 2019, and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was and now again is a cherished local tradition.

Among the guests were Vice-Mayor Andy Wilson, Councilmember Tyron Hampton, Fire Chief Chad Augustin, Reverend Mike Kinman of All Saints Church, NAACP Pasadena Branch President Allen Edson and a host of other local religious leaders and city staff members.

After invocations from Reverend Marlene Pomerow of the First Congregational Church of Pasadena, and Cantor Ruth Berman Harris of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, Mayor Gordo welcomed the group, saying, “We are all one voice and one story, and we have been through much, and we should all be very proud that we went through this together.”

“I recall at this time last year, as we all struggled with various parts of our lives, whether personally financially, healthwise, we all watched as our families struggled,” Gordo said. “As instability set in for each of us, all around us, with our neighbors, and at that time, I recall saying ‘We have to stand together. Ae have to face this time like no other. And do it together.’”

“And we did that,” he added, “And I think a big part of that was the people in this room and the organizations that you represent, as well as the faith community. We all got through it together.”

Gordo also touted the city’s response with regard to vaccines, noting that Pasadena recently recorded a 99.9% vaccination rate, the highest in the state.

Tribute was paid to those who died during the pandemic, in particular, regular attendee Dolores Hickambottom, a champion of women’s and civil rights for well over 50 years in Pasadena. Members of her family were in attendance Thursday.

Friends in Deed Executive Director Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater shared stories of his group’s efforts in assisting Pasadena’s homeless population.

“Sharon’s husband went out to buy a loaf of bread,” he began his first tale. “And that was the last time she heard from him.”

Without her husband’s income, Sharon soon became homeless, said Grater. She tried shelter after shelter, eventually giving up on them, preferring to ride all night on public buses or to sleep rough on the streets.

“The first time someone mentioned the Friend in Deed Women’s Room to Sharon, she didn’t want to try it because of her experiences in the shelters,” he said.

“But once she was persuaded to go,” said Grater, “she found cheerful and clean volunteers in aprons offering hot chocolate and homemade chicken noodle soup.”

Grater recalled that it took the coordinated efforts of several agencies to help Sharon put her life back together.

“But,” she said, “Thanks to the Women’s Room, I got my dignity back.”

Keynote speaker Reyna Grande, a former Pasadena resident and winner of the 2007 American Book Award, spoke of faith under difficult circumstances.

Having come to the US as a child and wading through the immigration process, she often felt alone and neglected throughout her school years.

“They put me in a corner and ignored me,” she recalled.

Once she arrived at Pasadena City College in 1994, though, she found a mentor and friend in Dr. Diana Savas, her English professor.

“Because of the lack of diversity in the literature I had access to,” she told the group, “I had come to assume that Latinos don’t write books. So when my PCC English professor asked me if I ever thought about pursuing a career as a professional writer, the answer was, ‘No. Latinos don’t write books.’”

Then she handed Reyna books by Latina authors, “and a whole world opened up.”

Diana Savas eventually not only welcomed Grande into her classroom, she also welcomed her into her home.

“When I was at PCC,” said Grande, “my father was struggling with alcoholism and temper. He and my stepmother were having marriage problems. And one day he physically attacked her and she ended up in the hospital. The police showed up at our house and arrested my father in front of me. I watched them take him away in handcuffs. The next day I still had to come to PCC. I still had to turn in my homework, but I felt that my world was falling apart, and I didn’t know what to do.”

She went to Savas’s office.

Grande recalled, “I just needed someone to talk to, someone to listen to me, to give me advice, but she didn’t want that. She looked at me and said, ‘Do you want to come live with me?’”

As Grande explained, Savas had seen students drop out because of their families and lack of support.

“She didn’t want that to happen to me,” said Grande. “So she gave me shelter. She gave me a refuge where I could focus on my studies, and on my dreams.”

Reyna compared Savas to the welcoming innkeeper in the Las Posadas procession she participated in as a child at Christmas time in her home state of Guerrero, Mexico, the story of Jesus and Mary seeking shelter.

“Diana was like that innkeeper in the song we sang back then,” said Grande, “The one who says, ‘Come in, come in, please receive this corner of my home, which though is humble, I offer it with all my heart.’”

Grande’s first novel, “Across a Hundred Mountains,” received a 2006 El Premio Aztlan Literary Award, a 2007 American Book Award and a 2010 Latino Books into Movies Award. Her second novel, “Dancing with Butterflies,” was the recipient of a 2010 International Latino Book Award in its Best Women’s Issues category, and a 2010 Las Comadres & Friends National Latino Book Club Selection.

“The Distance Between Us” was a 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and has been selected by numerous city-wide read programs.

A little shelter goes a long way.