Butler YMCA packed for annual Good Friday breakfast
The halls of the Butler YMCA were closed and silent on Friday, March 29 — except for one of the gymnasiums on the top floor, which was packed to capacity for the 72nd annual Good Friday breakfast.
Heidi Bowser, membership director for the Butler YMCA, estimated that roughly 160 people came through the doors on North Washington Street to recognize Good Friday in good company.
“Fundamentally, we are a Christian organization, and that is why we hold the Good Friday breakfast,” Bowser said. “We put the C into YMCA. It’s a Christian event. It’s Holy Week, and we want to represent our Christian mission here at the Butler YMCA.”
A recurring event at YMCA branches across the country, the Good Friday breakfast has been a Butler County institution since its debut in 1951, when the Butler YMCA was located in what is now the Cubs Hall.
The event went away for both 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but returned in 2022.
Each year, the breakfast is the subject of months worth of planning and preparation by an entire committee.
“We have a committee of nine people. We start planning it usually in January,” Bowser said. “We have several meetings. Arranging musical groups, trying to estimate how many breakfasts we need, the marketing, the advertising, the ticket sales, all of that goes into it, so it’s a real event. We’re trying to plan for an event that has around 200 people.”
At one time, according to YMCA swim lesson coordinator Jay McCaslin, the Good Friday breakfast had such a standing in the Butler community that it was broadcast live on the radio. Since then, Good Friday breakfasts have sprung up in other parts of Butler County.
“A lot of other communities and a lot of other churches have spun off a breakfast,” McCaslin said. “In Meridian, there’s a breakfast. In Chicora and Karns City there’s a breakfast now. Maybe not entirely because of us, but we were a good influence.”
The key sermon of the breakfast was delivered by the Rev. Dwight Dunn of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Butler. Dunn centered his sermon around the lyrics to the song “Somebody Ease My Troublin’ Mind” by Sam Cooke, and the idea that Jesus Christ did exactly that for mankind when he died for our sins.
Although Dunn preaches in Pittsburgh, he recently moved to Butler County with his family.
“Nobody knows our troubles like Jesus, and therefore we are encouraged to go together in prayer,” Dunn said. “Jesus cares. He cares by bearing the troubles caused by your sin. He cares by listening to the troubles of your heart.”
Harry Glenn came to the breakfast mainly to listen to Dunn preach, and was not disappointed with what he heard.
“This is the first time I've been here in five years,” Glenn said. “(It was) just to hear this fine speaker in our presence, and I think he did a wonderful job.”
