“We just wanted to bring all of the churches together, united as one,” said Beverly Young, one of the key organizers of the event along with William Frazier and Debi Thompson. “We started out just to see how many churches we could get involved.”
“We hear a lot of negative things about our community, so we just wanted to create something positive,” the Rev. Dennis Kidd of the Front Street Church of God.
Kidd said that even though people in the city’s churches share a lot of common beliefs and ideas, they all do their own thing on Sunday mornings and rarely come together as one body.
“We just started telling people what we wanted to do and the committee started coming together,” Young said. “We ended up with over 40 people in the room.
“We all came up with different ideas that we’d throw out on the table and eventually it all came together,” she said.
The first year drew about 1,400 people from 14 Hamilton churches, Kidd said.
It turned out to be so popular, however, that this year the number swelled to 22 churches, including three from Middletown, Young said.
And, Kidd said, it also became something of a homecoming as Hamilton natives now living in Florida, Chicago, Denver and other far-flung places came back home to participate in the event.
The day included a large, non-denominational worship service featuring the Bethel Baptist Choir, a 60-voice children’s choir comprised of members of various churches, gospel comedians Rev. Big John and Rodney Jones, praise bands from various churches and praise fellowship from the House of Deliverance, Young said.
The blessings — and the food — were abundant, organizers said.
“Each church donated food for their own and a little extra to share,” Kidd said. “We had so much left over that we had some to give to the shelters.”
Young noted that the day went smoothly with no disruptions and no trouble.
“It created a lot of good fellowship and community,” Kidd said. “The way it’s going, it should be an annual event now.”
“It was one lovely day,” Young concurred.
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