Over 100 people celebrate National Day of Prayer on SLO County courthouse steps
Over a hundred people gathered on the San Luis Obispo Superior Courthouse steps on Thursday to celebrate the National Day of Prayer to “pray for our nation,” District Attorney Dan Dow said at the event.
“The National Day of Prayer has great significance for us as a nation, as it enables us to recall and to teach new generations the way our founding fathers sought the wisdom of God when facing critical decisions,” Dow said.
Signed into law in 1952, the national holiday is held every year on the first Thursday of May.
Over the course of the event, pastors and religious leaders from around the county joined Dow and a guitarist on stage in front of the courthouse, offering prayers and reading relevant scriptures for a range of topics including the church, families, Israel, education and the military.
“Let education be a force for good and transformation and unity in our country,” one leader said as he led a prayer for educators, administrators, support staff, parents and students.
Kevin Jones was one of the many in the crowd pleased to be there.
Though he is a Christian, he said he had never even heard of the National Day of Prayer before he happily stumbled upon the event on the courthouse steps.
“If there’s one thing our world needs, it’s Jesus Christ and prayers,” Jones told The Tribune. “I’m glad they did it publicly because Jesus died publicly and he rose from the dead publicly, so believing in Jesus should be a public thing.”
One attendee, who was under the impression he was attending a protest against President Donald Trump, was surprised to find a very different event being held outside the courthouse from the political rally held in the same spot weeks earlier.
“I’m very surprised to see this today, especially on the courthouse steps,” Cliff Ward of Los Osos told The Tribune. “I don’t hear much political (language). I think the speech about education is great.”
In line with the legal requirement for the president to issue a proclamation each year encouraging Americans to pray, President Trump hosted a similar event on the White House lawn to celebrate the holiday and was expected to issue a proclamation.
This story was originally published May 1, 2025 at 2:22 PM.
