Remembrance Service, Awards Brunch To Honor Fathers on Father's Day

By STEVEN HERBERT
City News Service

LOS ANGELES, CA - Events marking Father's Day in Los Angeles County on Sunday will include a remembrance service at a Culver City cemetery and a brunch in Long Beach honoring unsung fathers.

A Community Father's Day Remembrance Service will begin at 10 a.m. at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary. The service commemorates the bond between fathers and their children that has been a cornerstone of Jewish tradition from the time of Abraham, the first of the three patriarchs of the religion.

Those attending are asked to contribute canned and dry foods, eyeglasses and hearing aids to the Hillside Chesed Project, an effort to help others associated with the spirit of tzedakah, the Hebrew word commonly used to signify charity but more accurately meaning a religious obligation to do what is right and just.

The Mablean Ephriam Foundation will conduct its 14th annual Honoring Unsung Fathers Awards and Scholarship Brunch at the Hilton Long Beach. The event is sold out.

The awards are intended to celebrate fathers and make Father's Day as special as Mother's Day and encourage and promote positive fatherhood by spotlighting fathers who accept their role and responsibility and do it well.

The awards honor fathers in five categories:

• "Solo Warrior," the father who never married the child's mother and is the primary custodial parent;
• "Love Cares," the married father living in the home;
• "Fatherhood Forever," billed as "the divorced father who divorced the mother, not the children";
• "The Village Dad," the non-biological father who stepped into the shoes of the father; and
• "The Living Legacy," an elderly father who serves as the role model for other fathers.

Ephraim said the awards were inspired by her 1999-2006 stint on the syndicated courtroom series "Divorce Court," hearing actual cases involving feuding parents.

The winners are nominated by their children, wives, former wives, parents, siblings, other relatives, friends, co-workers and others who know and admire their great qualities. Nominees are primarily from Los Angeles County.

College scholarships will also be presented to students who graduated from high school this year and adults ages 25 to 40 who delayed their college educations for personal or financial reasons.

In his Father's Day proclamation, President Barack Obama wrote "Being a father is about more than just having children -- it is about summoning the courage to love and support them over anything else. We must always strive to be the best parents and role models we can be and commit to being present in the lives of our kids."

Obama also called for promoting "responsible fatherhood by lifting up the fathers who do their part to be the parents and providers their children need and by rejecting any excuse for failing to meet this obligation.

"Too many Americans grow up without a father figure in their lives, and it is imperative that America's responsible men step up to be mentors for our young people in need of guidance," Obama wrote.

Obama suggested visiting Fatherhood.gov for advice on being a better father and Mentor.gov for information to become a mentor.

Father's Day began when Sonora Smart Dodd wanted to honor her father, William Jackson Smart, a single parent who raised six children in Spokane, Washington. She initially suggested June 5, the anniversary of his death.

However, when that date would not provide organizers with enough time to make arrangements, the first Father's Day was celebrated in 1910 in Spokane on the third Sunday in June.

In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge recommended Father's Day be a national holiday. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Father's Day as a holiday to be celebrated on the third Sunday in June, while President Richard Nixon signed a bill into law to do so in 1972.

— photo via Shutterstock