KANNAPOLIS — Bethel Baptist Church Ministries will sponsor the 16th Annual MLK Celebration Weekend Unity Prayer Breakfast on Saturday, Jan. 18, at the Bethel Enrichment Center; 1209 Opal St.

Doors will open at 7:30 a.m. with breakfast served from 8-9 a.m. The program will begin promptly at 9. Jim Embry, president of the Lexington, Kentucky, Sustainable Communities Network and a slow food, social and civil rights activist, will be the keynote speaker.

The group will also honor the 2020 Cabarrus County MLK Unity Prayer Breakfast Trailblazer Award Recipients, River Lewis, 2014 A.L. Brown High graduate, and Alexis McCrea, 2013 Jay M. Robinson High graduate.

Lewis, an Eagle Scout, founded Operation Exposure during his sophomore year at Morehouse College to engage youth and families in the West End area of Atlanta and back home in the Rowan-Cabarrus area. Operation Exposure’s mission is to enlighten and expose minority youth through mentorship, knowledge and altruistic decision making.

Operation Exposure seeks to evoke positive community-based change while educating youth on beneficial ways to build confidence. To date Lewis has taken youth males from Rowan-Cabarrus and Atlanta to summer camp at Camp Barnhardt, on a ski trip to Cataloochee, Tenn., and conducted summer health and wellness camps. Lewis is being honored for his work with minority youth.

McCrea made history as the first Winston-Salem State University student to earn a doctor of physical therapy degree through the Early Assurance Program a year and a half after earning her bachelor’s degree from WSSU. The Early Assurance program offers guaranteed admissions to WSSU exercise science graduates who meet specific requirements for admission into the doctor of physical therapy program. The program allowed McCrea to start the doctoral program a year early, a semester before she had completed her bachelor’s degree. She is being honored for her academic accomplishments and history-making feat.

Tickets may be purchased online at bbcm.info/mlk. They ask that you purchase tickets prior to the
event to help ensure proper accommodations for all participants.