Ten Mile Community Prayer Breakfast will honor volunteer fire departments
This year’s Ten Mile Community Prayer Breakfast will honor 15 area fire departments that serve the communities in and around the Bethlehem-Center School District.
The community breakfast is scheduled for Sept. 7 in the Marianna Community Outreach parking lot at 117 First St., Marianna (the former Sts. Mary and Ann Church).
Gathering and music begin at 8 a.m., with breakfast, catered by the Spring House, set to start at 8:30. The program honoring the firefighters will begin at 9.
In 2022, the district’s teachers, staff and administration were the recipients of prayers and honors. In 2023, the focus was the students, and at least 75 attended.
“We have had two really successful ones,” said Pat O’Brien, a volunteer with the outreach and a 1979 graduate of Beth-Center High School. “This year, we’re taking it out a little bit further into the Beth-Center community and we’re honoring all of the volunteer fire departments that serve our area. We’ve invited them all. We have a table of 10 complimentary for each fire department to bring their membership and their families to be honored and thanked and prayed for, for all they do for our community.”
The breakfast will honor the five departments in the district – Marianna, East Bethlehem/Fredericktown, Denbo Vesta Six, Richeyville and West Brownsville – as well as 10 other area departments, including Lone Pine, Brownsville, Clarksville, Jefferson, Rices Landing, California, Cokeburg, Ellsworth, Bentleyville and Amwell/Amity. Two emergency medical service companies, Brownsville Ambulance and Ambulance and Chair Service in Washington, will also be honored.
Those departments will be presented with the “Love God – Love Your Community” Leaders Award.
Music will again be provided by Devon Johnson, 1993 graduate and Marianna native. Johnson is the lead vocalist for Ruff Creek, a local country band. Members of the Beth-Center High School Band and Chorus also will perform.
The keynote speaker will be John Thomas, pastor of Calvary Chapel Church in Brownsville. Thomas is also a talented potter and because Southwestern Pennsylvania has a strong pottery tradition, he was attracted to the area.
“He started his own little pottery company in Fredericktown,” O’Brien said of Thomas. “From that grew a Sunday school, a kindergarten and a church congregation. He’s so renowned within his church and within the Christian community.”
Donald MacFann, superintendent of the Beth-Center School District, will provide a welcome, and Chuck Gould, a member of the South Hills Bible Chapel, will offer the prayer.
Any excess proceeds from the event will go to the district, earmarked for greater emergency preparedness and the education of volunteer opportunities with local fire departments and first responders.
MacFann said the district has received almost $20,000 from the first two breakfasts and has been able to make good use of the money, including a project in which the students built marquees at each entrance of the high school thoroughfare.
“Now, we have two marquees that are just beautiful,” he said. “What’s probably even more important is that money frees up a fund for our teachers if they need anything that supplements their curriculum, their instruction, their assessments.”
Seats for the breakfast can be reserved for $20 a table or a table of 10 for $200.