18th Mayor’s Breakfast Fellowship May 3

The Exchange Club of Hilo invites the community to the 18^th Annual Mayor’s Breakfast Fellowship at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 3, at the Plantation Kitchen, formerly Uncle Billy’s restaurant, at 87 Banyan Drive. Tickets for the buffet are $15.

“We Support Our Troops, Local Government and First Responders” will be the theme of this year’s breakfast. Brigadier Gen. Gary Hara and Mayor Billy Kenoi will be the keynote speakers. Music will be provided by Glen Goto, Diane Kurohara and Randy Lorenzo.

The program will also include Father Samuel Lerte of St. Joseph’s Church, Pastor Scott Shiroma of the New Hope Church of East Hawaii and Hilo High School graduate the Very Rev. Timothy Baclig from St. Michael’s Antiochan Orthodox Church in Van Nuys, Calif.

Reservations are encouraged. Tickets are available from Exchange Club members. For more information, contact project Chairman Frank P. Lafita at 987-9382.

Lafita noted that the tradition began in 1993, when then-Mayor Stephen Yamashiro recruited the Rev. Richard Uejo to organize various religious leaders for an interfaith community prayer breakfast. Uejo, Father Scott Bush and the Rev. Tom Okano coordinated that first edition of the event.

The fellowship breakfast is held in Hilo on the first Thursday in May, to coincide with the date of the annual National Day of Prayer.

“The Exchange Club of Hilo later was given the honor of sponsoring this event to show our support for our community, our troops and their families for the sacrifices they continue to make for our country,” said Lafita.

Exchange Clubs are groups of men and women working together to make their communities better places to live through community service, youth activities and Exchange’s national projects of Americanism and the prevention of child abuse and neglect, said Lafita.