Rotary Ready To Celebrate 50 Years Of Flapjacks & Community Service

By Kendra Bobowick

Newtown Rotary Club members have been cracking eggs, measuring flour, smearing butter across a steaming griddle, and pouring pancakes for eager diners on the first weekend in December since 1960. They have gone through 49 years of batter and coffee grounds, and are ready for their 50th annual breakfast when it arrives on Saturday, December 4.

“That’s when it started,” said Rotarian Robert Grossman, MD. Members had thought that a pancake breakfast would be a good way to celebrate the Christmas spirit and raise funds for the Rotary, which supports functions in town, he said.

The breakfast still takes place in its original location, filling the Edmond Town Hall’s Alexandria Room with aromas of fresh coffee, sweet syrup, and browning flapjacks for five hours on a Saturday morning and early afternoon. A club member for many years, Dr Grossman was there from the start.

“I was there for the first one!” he said. “It was great. We raised money, and now it has become a tradition.”

Rotary Club President Carrie Swan calls the event “signature Newtown.” The pancake breakfast takes place amid a weekend filled with tree lightings in Ram Pasture and Sandy Hook Center, the town’s holiday festival, and other seasonal events scheduled to occur within the same three-day period.

“It’s really great that Newtown has a holiday celebration,” said Ms Swan, who likes that “everyone comes together” on that weekend to support the community, participate in a town’s seasonal celebration, and enjoy Newtown.

Event Chair and Mix Master Pat Caruso, who has made the pancake for the past six years, can’t give away secrets to the recipe that feeds hundreds on the first Saturday morning in December, he said. That morning, guests will once again crowd the Alexandria Room where families are annually drawn, stomachs growling.

Mr Caruso is only following tradition. During the first years of the pancake breakfast, the Rotary Club’s batter was a secret recipe that will remain a secret with its founder, Bob Stokes.

“When he died, no one else had the recipe,” said Dr Grossman. “Since then, we have made our own; it’s been very good.”

“It’s a great function,” echoed Mr Caruso.

Dr Grossman recalls one year when Santa arrived by helicopter to give out gifts to the children. Despite St Nick’s flamboyant appearance that particular year, the pancake breakfast had started out small, said Dr Grossman.

Originally breakfasts in the Alexandria Room found Rotary members and volunteers at work over the grill, dropping “red hot” pancakes onto guests’ plates as people walked by, along with sausage, applesauce, coffee, and syrup. Diners were have always been welcome to each as much as they wanted.

Recent kitchen renovations at Edmond Town Hall, a project that received the Rotary’s financial support, have allowed members to move into the facility to prepare their breakfast.

The annual breakfast is a “good community service that has become a tradition that everybody expects,” he said.

Rotary Historian Paul Gehrett has also had a hand in the pancake breakfast.

“We all take turns; we’re all involved,” he said. “It’s good to see residents come together.”

The event’s continued good attendance — guests often have to wait in line to get into the room, sometimes finding themselves in a line that snakes from the Alexandria Room on the building’s third floor down the stairs toward the main lobby on the second floor — means high school and middle school student volunteers have also been recruited to help with serving and cleanup duties.

Rotary and Reed Intermediate School Interact Club members, who share in the day’s fundraising proceeds, often help the Rotarians during the breakfast.

Tickets for Newtown Rotary Club’s 50th Annual Pancake Breakfast are $7, $3 for ages 10 and under. They can be purchased in advance from any member of Rotary Club of Newtown, and will be available at the door. Contact Ms Swan at 203-426-1230 for additional information.

Charitable Efforts

In addition to plenty of pancakes, Rotary Club members will again promote Amber Alert during this year’s pancake breakfast. Information about the program will be available, and IDs will be created for parents who want their children to participate in the child abduction alert program.

Rotary’s effort to eradicate polio through the Purple Pinkie program will also be explained.

In addition, this year Rotary of Newtown is starting another local holiday effort, Wheels for Kids, to collect and refurbish bicycles for children in nearby communities. Rotarian Brian Amey explained that the effort aims to collect bicycles for children ages 5 through 10, which will be refurbished and donated to Danbury Youth Services. The drive ends on December 8. For bike pick-up or more information, contact Mr Amey at 203-364-2906, or Mr Caruso at 203-426-8870.