"HE HAS RISEN!
By Dave Bellusci
The Sunland-Tujunga Kiwanis Club, in association with the
Ministerial association will sponsor the 85th annual Easter Sunrise
Celebration at the Cross of San Ysidro this Easter Morning.
This celebration at the cross originally came about when the
local ministers and Kiwanis Club got together and started the early morning
service, and it has grown to what it is today.
The Kiwanis Club doesn’t perform the service, the Ministerial Association
does. There are five ministers from five
of the churches in the Sunland-Tujunga area that are involved providing the
service. Each minister does a part of
the whole service, which is non-sectarian.
Over the past 85 years the Kiwanis Club has gotten the cross
and the area ready for the service. On
Saturday the club members clean up the area, bring up the chairs and repaint
the cross if it needs some touch-up work.
The road coming up to the cross is graded using a tractor and driven by
one of the club members. The Kiwanis
Club provides that chairs, sound system, lighting of the cross, which is lit
Saturday night and stays on ‘til after the service.
All the setting up for the service is done by the club
members. The preparation takes all day
and Saturday and one of the members will spend the night at the cross. There are four to five hundred people that
attend the service. At first they would
stand during the service. Then the club
was bale to get milk crates from the old Anawalt Lumber to sit on. When both the market and lumber yard closed,
we had one of our members, a masonry contractor, donated the blocks and
planks. After he moved we started using
chairs, which we are still using.
In all the years that the service has been put on, and in my
years of being involved with the Kiwanis Club and the Easter Sunrise Service,
it has only been rained out twice and had to have the service indoors. The
other bad thing that happened was vandals tore down the cement cross. These were two youngsters that pulled the
cross down. The club set up a temporary
wooden cross, and that too was pulled down.
The club put up another wooden cross and had several members spend the
night guarding the cross and area.
The vandals were
apprehended and their parents paid to have the cross rebuilt as it is standing
now. This happened in 1974.
Starting at 4:30 a.m. Easter Morning the club members start
transporting the celebrants up to the cross.
The Kiwanis Club at first started using their own cars to transport the
people up to the cross, but the road took its toll on the members cars. That is when they started to use the tractor
to grade the road. What the club has
done now is work with the YMCA and have their driver and large van take the
people up to the cross.
The club rents two 12 to 15 passenger vans. The reason is that there will only be the
vans going back and forth from the starting point, which is to the cross, and
after the service, take them back down to the starting point. After all the people are gone, the club tears
everything down, and the equipment, chairs, etc. are gone and the place is
cleaned up within a couple of hours.
Sandy Miller had dedicated a lot of time and energy in
putting on the Easter Sunrise Service as a long time member of the club. Sandy
passed away five years ago and his family continues to work on putting on the
Easter Sunrise.
We, the Sunland-Tujunga Kiwanis Club dedicate the Easter
Sunrise Service to Sandy Miller and his family.
His sons still carry on the tradition."
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