By Bo Simons
Marvin Bowers, an Episcopal priest who spent most of his 50-year priesthood as Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Healdsburg, died recently in Los Angeles. But his Healdsburg legacy endures in the good works of St. Paul’s as well as several communities of which he was a part or the initiator of: the Food Pantry (still governed by Healdsburg Shared Ministries), the Sunday Meal, the St. Paul’s Shower Ministry, and the Alliance Medical Center.
Father Bowers came to Healdsburg in 1972 and started his outreach by making friends with Monsignor John “Jack” O’Hare at St. John’s across the street. Pastor Bill Hayes of the Federated Church (now Healdsburg Community Church) soon joined them, forming a weekly ecumenical lunch which engendered several church-started yet secular community services.
Bowers sparked a lot of social action that was powered by, but transcended, the Sunday services. North County Community Services (NCCS), which evolved into Reach for Home, began in the 1970s when Bowers found unhoused folks sleeping in the pews of St. Paul’s as he closed the church one evening. It was his first brush with the growing homeless problem. He decided to convert the Parish Hall bathroom into a four-bed emergency shelter.
Years later, the City of Healdsburg rehabbed an abandoned house and grounds next to the church into 11 housing units and gave use of the property to NCCS, then solely an outreach of St Paul’s. Incorporated as an independent nonprofit and renamed Reach for Home, this effort now strives for the same goals and reaches many more people as an independent agency.
Bowers heard of workers who had no food on weekends and started “The Sunday Meal.” This service continues to this day and now includes 10 churches. They rotate and use St. Paul’s kitchen and Parish Hall to prepare and serve the meal to 50-100 people per week.
One harvest Bowers filled his blue pickup with day-old bread from Safeway and lunched with the farmworkers camped near the Alexander Valley Bridge. Combined with existing food and Christmas-giving and powered by the ministers’ weekly lunch, this modest effort grew to encompass several churches, and the Healdsburg Food Pantry was born.
“Some of the families do pretty well at certain times of the year, but after harvest and before pruning, there’s not a lot going on in the fields. And it happens to be Christmas, when they want to do something special for the kids,” Bowers said in a 1999 San Francisco Chronicle article.
Christmas basket organizing and distribution first took place in St. John’s Thrift Store, where Spoke Folk is now. The Christmas food-and-gift baskets grew into weekly food distribution. The Food Pantry moved to its present location over 20 years ago. Both weekly food giving and the Christmas extravaganza of food baskets, presents and clothing distribution continue to this day.
Doctors in Healdsburg had volunteered Tuesday nights to see patients at $1 per visit (waived for need). As this ad-hoc medical clinic swelled, Bowers, a board member, noticed that its volunteer bookkeepers were out of their depth, and brought in a parishioner, retired business CEO Max Dunn. Dunn forged the well-intentioned effort into Alliance Medical, a powerful medical clinic serving the rural poor.
In the late 1970s Bishop John Thompson heard of St. Paul’s vibrant work and visited St. Paul’s. Impressed with the outreach to the Latino community, he told Marvin he had to care for and feed souls as well as bodies. He sent Bowers to Cuernavaca for a month of intensive Spanish. As a result, “Padre Marvin” began preaching in Spanish and a Latino congregation sprouted. It continued for 40 years until 2018, 12 years after his retirement.
To recognize Father Marvin’s service to the community, the Diocese of Northern California conferred on him the title of Honorary Canon and named St. Paul’s “A Jubilee Ministry” for its “social justice ministry of advocacy and service for the poor and oppressed.”
Marvin Bowers retired from St. Paul’s in 2006 and moved with his family to Los Angeles in 2020. On April 15 of this year, he died at home in L.A. at the age of 80, surrounded by his loving family.
A memorial service will be held at 1pm on July 12, 2025, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 209 Matheson St., Healdsburg. A reception will follow.
Bo Simons is the former branch manager at Healdsburg Regional Library.
Pastor Marvin Bowers lived a block from our house. We often saw him driving his old pale blue pickup truck and walking around the block. He was a very kind soul and a good man.
Thank you Bo Simons for this well researched and loving tribute. He loved Healdsburg, he loved being a priest.
Marvin was truly a blessing to the Healdsburg community.
I appreciate this well written summary of his many contributions and accomplishments.
My condolences to his lovely wife and children.