YMCA hosts annual prayer breakfast

The YMCA of Greater St. Petersburg held its 24th annual Community Prayer Breakfast at the St. Petersburg Coliseum on Monday. Local residents and leaders attended the event, which featured two keynote speakers: educator Erin Gruwell and Suzanne McCormick, president and CEO of YMCA of the USA.

Gruwell spoke about her time teaching at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, during the 1990s. She noted that her students faced poverty, gang influence, and violence. Gruwell encouraged them to write their stories, a project that became the basis for the New York Times bestselling book The Freedom Writers Diary. All 150 students in her class graduated high school, and many pursued higher education.

“When I became a teacher in Los Angeles, my community was reeling,” Gruwell said. “We just had a riot. We had homicides. My students were hurting and I walked into my classroom as teenagers were reaching for a fist, reaching for a gun or reaching for a Molotov cocktail.” She explained that she worked with the YMCA to guide the young people she taught, helping them become authors and activists.

Gruwell described a classroom game where students stepped onto a tape line if a question applied to them. This allowed learners to stand side by side with strangers from different ethnic backgrounds. “I wanted to create a family,” she said. “I wanted my students to realize that we are much more similar than we are different.”

Suzanne McCormick, the first woman to lead YMCA of the USA, addressed the crowd as the organization celebrates its 175th anniversary. McCormick assumed the role in 2021 after serving as U.S. President for United Way Worldwide and as president and CEO of United Way Suncoast in Tampa. She said the Y is embracing a new vision called Creating Connected Communities to address loneliness and isolation.

“We are increasingly divided by politics, by race, by religion and by our beliefs about what is right and what is wrong,” McCormick said. She urged civic, business, and faith leaders to work together to build relationships and a sense of belonging.

St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway received the Chester James Award at the gathering. Holloway began his law enforcement career with the Clearwater Police Department in 1985. He served as Clearwater Police Chief starting in 2010 before becoming St. Petersburg Police Chief in August 2014. “It means a lot,” Holloway said. “It shows that we, the police department, have done a great job working with the community and it shows that the community and law enforcement are hand in hand now.”