Story By John Mann
The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Guntersville hosted their third annual “Saluting Our Heroes” breakfast on Saturday, welcoming veteran and first responders to come enjoy food and live music ahead of Veteran’s Day.
“It’s a way of honoring those who gave up their time and lives to protect our country,” Epiphany Outreach Ministry Chair Jennie McBride said. “They get recognition around this time and we want to make sure we recognize them too. And also our first responders, they help us every day so this is an event not just for veterans but ambulance drivers, nurses, doctors, firefighters, sheriffs and police. They are all invited.”
The breakfast was catered by Gunter’s Landing for the food, while the church welcomed the Snead State Jazz Band to perform for the attendees. The band began working around August for this year’s performances and is currently made up of about fourteen students under the new band director Dr. Donald Blakely.
The band is made up of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, guitar and bass, piano and drums. For the breakfast they performed a nine song set list which included “Chameleon”, “The Shadow of Your Smile” and “Sidewinder.”
“They started about the middle of August and they’ve been working really hard on some new music and getting squared away,” Blakely said. “They practice for events just like this and all in all they’ve probably got between twenty-five and thirty songs learned. It’s great to be here, we love being out in the community and getting to serve and play, it helps Snead State out quite a bit but it also lets these kids really grow as musicians.”
The breakfast was just one of several outreach programs that the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany takes part in. Aside from their regular food pantry they also maintain their God’s Little Pantry in the parking lot, which is stocked daily with non-perishables and toiletries for anyone to make use of. The church even encourages people to leave items in the pantry, with canned proteins like chicken and tuna, as well as canned or evaporated milk being high priority items. Once a month they also hold a beans and rice giveaway in their parking lot, which includes a hot breakfast in their café. To further promote their hunger initiatives the church even recently received a 4200.00 dollar grant from the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama.
We’ve been working on the best way to use it during the SNAP emergency,” McBride said. “We’re going to have a meeting this week to discuss it. We may end up stocking the pantry twice a day or we may up our giveaways.”
The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany is located at 1101 Sunset Drive in Guntersville and holds regular service at 1030 on Sunday. For more information visit their website at epiphanyguntersville.org or find them on Facebook at “Episcopal Church of The Epiphany.”
