About 1,200 people came out for cereal, Pop-Tarts and prayer Tuesday morning.The 2009 Community Prayer Breakfast was held at Kellogg Arena, bringing people of various faiths to hear readings from the Torah and the Old and New Testaments.The event featured a speech from Michael Franzese, a former member of New York's Colombo crime family.As the gathered diners poured Kellogg's cereal and downed coffee, Franzese talked about his life in the mob.It was a tale of going in and out of prison, being targeted for death by the Mafia and his eventual path to God and prayer."I want to be really honest with you this morning, especially you young people," Franzese said to the audience.

"That life at times is very violent.""If you're part of the life, you're part of the violence and there's no escape," he said.The ex-caporegime said part of his spiritual awakening came through a Bible given to him by a prison guard after he had been arrested for parole violations in the early 1990s.Before his arrest, Franzese was making an effort to escape the organized crime lifestyle.

He was being held in solitary confinement out of fear he would be killed in the general population for trying to get out of the crime family."I looked at it and said, 'This guy sends me a Bible?' I want a bottle of Prozac or something right now, not a Bible,'" he said.Nevertheless, Franzese found the answers he was looking for in the pages of the book.

He said the true credit for his transformation from mobster to motivational speaker goes to that prison guard he didn't know the name of and never saw again.James Sunnock and his wife, Aileen, brought their three teenage sons to hear Franzese's message over breakfast."We just to like to hear different people's stories," he said.

"What a remarkable story.

Being in the Mafia and then he found freedom."Sunnock is a pastor at Battle Creek's Victory Life Church.

He said another important aspect of the Prayer Breakfast was getting the spiritual community to come together.



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