Correspondent photo / Sean Barron Several city and religious leaders, including the Rev. Kenneth L. Simon, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church, center, holding a large pair of scissors, take part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony Sunday to celebrate the new K.L. Simon Community Center at the Youngstown church.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Rev. Kenneth L. Simon fondly remembered his late father, the Rev. Lonnie K.A. Simon, used to rejoice by yelling “Holy!” when he felt something God-driven had come to fruition.

Suffice it to say that the elder Simon likely would have been hollering the same or similar praises Sunday because of a community center named in honor of his son.

“My dad would be proud of the church and leadership,” the younger Simon, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church, said.

Many of that leadership’s efforts were reflected in the new K.L. Simon Community Center that was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and program Sunday afternoon at the 100-year-old iconic church, 1507 Hillman St., on the South Side.

The main thrust of the center, estimated at $320,000, is to fulfill a God-led vision that had been several years in the making to bring the community closer together and, in essence, be a site that allows the church to extend its ministry, care and compassion beyond its walls, Simon explained.

In mid-2023, about $250,000 was secured to start the project. A few months later, renovations got underway.

The facility, formerly a sanctuary in the church’s older section, also will be available for a variety of community events and gatherings such as weddings, meetings, community-improvement outreach gatherings and banquets, with capacity for 250 to 300 people, he noted. Those already using it include the Harambee of Youngstown dancers, Simon said, noting that the center had a soft opening earlier this year.

The primary purposes of Sunday’s gathering — which more than 100 elected officials, community leaders and others attended — were to promote the center as a blessing to the community, celebrate with the community as a whole, consecrate and ask for God’s blessings and outreach, provide additional community outreach, and generate continued financial and other support for the facility and its sustainability, the Rev. Theodore Brown, assistant to the pastor, noted. The project also has the support of many community partners, he said, adding that the space will be a place “for countless lives to be transformed.”

“Pastor Simon brought this to us a few years back,” Mahoning County Commissioner Anthony T. Traficanti said in his remarks, adding that he was happy to be on board with such an effort and, by extension, part of the city’s revitalization.

“This is what happens when a community comes together and puts aside its differences. We’re a family,” Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said, adding that the community center is a great example of what can result “when we let our light shine.”

On a larger scale, the space is another piece in the ongoing effort to add jobs, housing and sites to Youngstown to positively impact lives, city Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward, said.

For Simon, the space is personal because it would be highly meaningful to his late father, who pastored New Bethel Baptist from 1962 to 1995, he said. Lonnie Simon regularly made it a point to remind his congregants that they had a responsibility to leave a greater impact on their community, not just be satisfied with merely worshipping every Sunday, his son added.

“That’s what this sanctuary is for — to serve,” Simon said.

Lonnie Simon, who died in November 2012 at 87, was a longtime community and civil rights activist who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many others in the five-day Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965 for voting rights.

He also was a poet, an educator, a member of the Youngstown Board of Education and three-year U.S. Navy veteran who received an honorable discharge in 1946. After his 33-year pastoral service, Simon was named the church’s pastor emeritus.

Before his tenure at New Bethel, Simon’s first pastorship was from 1954 to 1959 at Elizabeth Baptist Church before he served in 1960 to lead a Canton church. In 1967, he attended a 10-week course at the Urban Training Center in Chicago, which, many have said, solidified his desire to work for nonviolent social change.

To that end, Simon was a calming force when riots broke out in Youngstown shortly after King’s assassination April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.

The K.L. Simon Community Center is about 95% finished, but still needs additional tables and chairs, as well as updates to its audio / visual and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, Simon said.

To make a monetary donation, send checks to the K.L. Simon Community Center, 1507 Hillman St., Youngstown, OH 44507.