It is with deepest sadness and regreat that we inform you that the Rev. Roosevelt Sanders, the son of the activist Indianapolis minister Rev. Mozel Sanders, who continued his father’s unique Thanksgiving Dinner program for the city’s needy has died following a long illness. He was 63.
Rev. Roosevelt Sanders returned to Indianapolis in 1988 to pastor the church his father pastored for many years, Mt. Vernon Community Missionary Baptist, in Haughville on Indianapolis’ Westside.
Rev. Roosevelt Sanders continued his father’s signature effort every Thanksgiving of feeding tens of thousands of needy individuals and family in the annual Mozel Sanders Thanksgiving Dinner. He founded the Mozel Sanders Foundation which carries on his father’s ministry of helping the needy and less fortunate in Indianapolis.
Working with the motto of “Don’t Look Down On A Man Unless You’re Trying To Pick Him Up.”, Rev. Roosevelt Sanders expanded the foundation’s work to include distributing thousands of pounds of groceries, personal hygiene and household cleaning products, each and every month.
Besides the Foundation, Rev. Roosevelt Sanders was one of the founders of Westside Community Ministries, a collaboration of Westside Indianapolis churches that operate programs and activities for Westside residents.
Rev. Roosevelt Sanders leaves behind his devoted wife, Stephanie, who has shared his ministry and work; three sons, Allen Sanders, Roosevelt Sanders Jr. and Stephen Mozel Sanders; other relatives, friends, his Mt. Vernon church family and the greater Indianapolis community that loved and respected him.
The entire Hot 96-3 family, our sister radio and television stations and Radio One express our deepest most profound sympathies to Stephanie and the Sanders family on their and our community’s loss.
Funeral services are pending.
