Dr. Ben Carson, pastors speak at community prayer breakfast in Lee County

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On Thursday morning, thousands gathered at Hammond Stadium in Lee County to have breakfast together and to give thanks as part of the National Day of Prayer.

More than 2,500 people registered to show up at the Lee County Sports Complex for a community prayer breakfast. More than three dozen local businesses and organizations sponsored the event, which included a complimentary breakfast with egg sandwiches and muffins.

The National Day of Prayer is an annual day of observance held on the first Thursday of May. WINK News spoke to Terri Hansen, one of the event managers for Southwest Florida Community Prayer Breakfast Inc., about what goes into planning this event.

“This is a very, very large undertaking; we have about 60 volunteers working today, that’s what it takes to put this on and we’ve been planning for about nine months,” Hansen said. “We have amazing people representing our community. All walks of life coming together in celebration of the National Day of Prayer and coming together in unity to pray for our county, our nation and our world.”

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office color guard did a presentation, several pastors spoke and read scripture, and former HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson took the stage around 7:40 a.m.

Ronald Inge, president of Southwest Florida Community Prayer Breakfast Inc., spoke to WINK about what he most looked forward to and what he heard from community members attending the event.

“One, ‘This is so great that you guys are doing this,’ A,” Inge said. “But B, ‘The National Day of Prayer is very important for all of us and it’s a really good lesson that the whole country needs to take to heart.’ And C, ‘How on Earth did you get Dr. Carson to come here?’ So, everyone’s very excited about that and we’re all excited about it as well. It’ll be a great turnout, the weather is great, the temperature is great… it’ll be a wonderful day.”

WINK News spoke with Carson following his speech and he said we need events like this now more than ever because of the state our country is in.

“I’m just pleased to see people starting to wake up,” Carson said. “We’ve had four revivals in the history of this country and they’ve all been around pestilence or war and now we have both of those going on. So, it’s probably time for another revival.”

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