Baker to Gather in Prayer for a Fresh Start at 2026 Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast

BAKER, La. — After years of confronting floods, challenges and uncertainty, the City of Baker is preparing to pause, pray and look toward a new beginning.

Mayor Darnell Waites will host the 2026 Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast on Friday, Aug. 28, bringing residents, faith leaders and community supporters together for a morning focused on faith, unity and renewal.

This year’s theme, “Living the Rainbow After the Flood: A Fresh Start,” draws inspiration from Genesis 9:13 and 16, where the rainbow becomes a biblical symbol of God’s covenant and promise following the flood.

The breakfast will begin at 7:30 a.m. at the Baker Municipal Center Auditorium, 3325 Groom Road, with breakfast scheduled to be served at 7 a.m.

Waites will be the featured speaker, giving the event a distinctly personal and civic dimension as Baker continues to look toward its future.

The imagery surrounding this year’s breakfast is deliberate: a rainbow stretches across the event’s centerpiece, a dove rises against the morning sky, and the words “A Fresh Start” frame the gathering as more than a traditional political or community event.

It is a call to the city to come together.

A morning built around hope

The event's message is captured in its central declaration:

“Together, we pray. We believe. We rise.”

For Baker, the language of renewal carries particular weight. The city has experienced the devastating effects of flooding and continues to face the everyday challenges confronting communities across the region.

The prayer breakfast offers an opportunity to shift the conversation from what Baker has endured to what Baker can become.

Rather than simply looking backward, organizers are inviting residents to look forward — with faith as the foundation.

The biblical reference to the rainbow reinforces that message. In Genesis, the rainbow appears after the flood as a sign of covenant, signaling that destruction does not have to be the final chapter.

That theme gives the 2026 breakfast a powerful message for Baker: the storm may have left its mark, but it does not have to determine the city's future.

More than breakfast

Tickets are $7 and will be available at the door.

Organizers are encouraging residents, families, churches, civic leaders and community supporters to attend and participate in what is being presented as a citywide moment of prayer and reflection.

The event also provides an opportunity for Baker's faith community and civic leadership to stand together around a common message of hope.

As the city prepares for the gathering, the invitation is straightforward:

Come pray. Come believe. Come rise.

The 2026 Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 28, at the Baker Municipal Center Auditorium.

And its message may be the most important part of the morning:

Every prayer counts. Every heart matters. Every new day is a fresh start.