Bring your friends, your family and your appetite for all the pancakes you can eat.
Tickets still are available for the 61st Annual Kiwanis Pancake Day from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 14 in the Anderson Building at the Lyon County Fairgrounds.
Ticket sales so far have been brisk, according to Sue Klamm, Emporia Kiwanis president.
“We’re kind of surprised about it, considering the economy,” Klamm said. “But this is when we need to do our best, because all the money goes back to the youth of Emporia and the surrounding area.”
Money raised at the pancake feed goes to fund a multitude of children’s organizations, Klamm said.
“We’ve got tons of projects,” that benefit Emporia youth, she said, including day-care scholarships, the annual Young Writers Conference, mittens for Head Start and a nursing scholarship for Newman hospital.
Klamm said the pancake feed is the year’s biggest fundraiser for Kiwanis, and the event has a long history in Emporia.
“I remember as a student at ESU, everybody said, ‘Oh, you have to go to the pancake feed,’” Klamm said.
In the past, the feed was held in the basement of the Civic Auditorium, and the event lasted all day.
“So as poor college students, we’d have pancakes for breakfast and then we’d go back in the afternoon and have pancakes all day,” she said. “But one thing we didn’t realize, because the smoke was so bad in there, that for a week you’d go around smelling like a giant pancake.”
But it’s more than just a pancake feed, because it involves so many people throughout the community.
“I’ve always thought of it as more of a social event,” Klamm said.
Pat Lyon is in charge of putting this year’s pancake day together.
“I’ve only been a Kiwanis member for three years, so this is a learning experience,” Lyon said.
Though the event only runs on Saturday, volunteers will be busy with preparations days beforehand, including setting up the mixers and grills and cleaning the tables. Kiwanis members donate a great deal of time directing parking at fairground events in order to be able to use the Anderson Building.
“The whole process is a well-oiled machine,” Lyon said. “We’ve got a lot of really good members who just step right up. They don’t have to be told what to do or ask what to do, they just do it. ... We’re blessed with some very good members that are willing to step up and make it work.”
Additional donations will be accepted for chances to win a variety of prizes in a drawing. Among the prizes are a pedal tractor donated by PrairieLand Partners and a quilt from quilters at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. Proceeds from the drawing will go to benefit Boy Scout Troop 165.
Tickets for the 61st Annual Kiwanis Pancake Day cost $4 in advance, available from Kiwanis members, or $5 at the door. Tickets for children cost $4.
A ticket to the pancake feed will get you all the pancakes you can eat, plus a sausage patty and milk or coffee. Additional sausage and milk can be purchased for 75 cents each.
For more information and for advance tickets, call Pat Lyon, 342-6143, or Sue Klamm, 343-3788.