By Mary O’KEEFE

On Saturday church members and community members from around Crescenta Valley gathered in an exercise of interfaith understanding by finding commonalities instead of highlighting differences.

The event was the annual CV Prayer Breakfast held at The Church of Latter-day Saints in La Crescenta. Over 200 people enjoyed breakfast as the Rosemont Middle School jazz band, Crescenta Valley High School Charismatics and Hiza Yoo Korean dancers entertained.

The keynote speaker was former L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich who spoke directly to the educators in the room and advised them to look into teaching students “life skills.”

“Life skills like balancing a checkbook,” he said.

Trutanich was with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office from 2009 to 2013. He spoke of seeing young people heading down the wrong path, without any real direction. He felt that, as they grew older and had the right skills, they could avoid the pitfalls that life would throw at them.

Among those in attendance on Saturday morning were Congressman Adam Schiff and Supervisor Michael Antonovich.

This was the fifth year for the prayer breakfast and the first one that was held on a Saturday, which made it easier for young people to attend.

The prayers offered by all the attending faith leaders were focused on the youth of Crescenta Valley and how to support and understand them.

“This [prayer breakfast] was started by the Crescenta Valley Town Council with [then councilmember] Danette Erickson, [Councilmember] Charles Beatty and me when asked why we no longer had a prayer breakfast,” said CVTC Vice President Harry Leon. “[CVTC] used to have it, but on a smaller [scale]. Then it stopped.”

Leon added the council and CV Chamber of Commerce had hosted the smaller prayer breakfast attended by just a few people, but he, Erickson and Beatty wanted it to be bigger and wanted to reach more people. An increased attendance on Saturday morning seemed to confirm that more people were being reached as was hoped.

  Mary Okeefe