South Bend feels different than it did when 80-year-old Marian Cane was raising her six children.
“We need peace,” she said. “We need peace in our hearts; we need peace in our souls; we need peace in our minds and we need peace here in South Bend.”
To pray for that peace locally and beyond, Cane joined nearly 50 people Sunday afternoon for the annual Pray for Peace Rally. Despite rain earlier in the day, the sun made an appearance for the crowd gathered at Jon Hunt Plaza in front of the Morris Performing Arts Center.
“We are so grateful for this demonstration of unity in our community,” YPJ Miller, pastor of Faith Alive Ministries, said as the crowd held hands in prayer. “South Bend is going higher and higher.”
The event brought together nine faith leaders from across the area, each echoing calls for peace, love and hope for a stronger community.
“We know that peace starts with us,” Ivy Butler, senior pastor at Power in Praise Crusade Ministries, said in prayer. “God, we speak peace right now in our neighborhoods, peace in our homes God, peace in the streets God.”
Sunday’s gathering was hosted by Let’s Turn It Around (LTIA), a local organization that works to promote peace and love by fostering connections across the community.
“I wish I could do it more than annually,” LTIA co-founder Lynn Coleman said. “It just makes sense for somebody to try to bring the community together in peace and love and not to let the hatred and violence we see overtake us.”
LTIA has hosted the event annually since 2020 as a way to foster change by connecting as a community. Since then, the organization has continued to invite area residents from differing faith traditions to join together in a call for peace.
“I just believe that if we come together as one, we can fix this,” Coleman said. “We can’t do it alone. It has to be all of us.”
Coleman says that LTIA intentionally plans the annual event for early summer to coincide with the time gun violence tends to increase.
“If we don’t do something like this, to me, it means we’re accepting the negativity that is going on, and that shouldn’t happen,” he said. “It’s not just a Black thing or a white thing, it’s a community thing. All of us have to come together, and if we don’t come together as one, we can’t wash away racism, sexism, classism, all the isms that keep us divided.”
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend faith leaders, residents come together at Prayer for Peace
Reporting by Becky Malewitz, Special to The Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Becky Malewitz, Special to The Tribune | USA TODAY Network
