St. Andrew Parish Presents Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Service Awards

St. Andrew Catholic Church presented its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Awards at mass on Sunday, Jan.28. The ceremony, originally scheduled for Jan. 14, was cancelled due to weather conditions. These awards are given to people whose service embodies the values of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who used nonviolence, civil disobedience and Christian teaching to advance the cause of civil rights in America. 

Parishioners are honored for their works with the poor, the powerless and the oppressed, works often accomplished with great devotion and little fanfare. Over the years, community service awards have gone to Jobs with Justice, Northwest Pilot Project, St. Andrew Legal Clinic and Veterans for Peace, along with many others working to bring justice and hope to the world. 

Ron Herndon (Photo courtesy of Black United Fund of Oregon)This year the parish recognized the 54-year career of activist Ron Herndon who, upon graduating from Reed College in 1970, co-founded the Black Education Center, a primary school in Northeast Portland. Today, Herndon serves as director of Albina Head Start, a position he first assumed in 1975. Throughout the years, he has worked for equality and justice, most often challenging racist power structures with persistence and success. 

Also receiving awards were two parishioners: Panama-born Martina Murray who acts as liaison and scheduler for the Promotores de Salud program that links Hispanic parishioners with health care providers, including vision and dentistry; and David Fikstad, who co-manages the parish’s emergency services in its mission to help neighborhood people with food, shelter and utility support. 

Since 2002, at the Sunday closest to the national holiday celebrating King, these awards reassert the parish’s sharing in what he called, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, his “audacious faith in the future of mankind.”