Refilling syrup bottles and serving coffee, milk and juice are, from left, Natalie Nelson, Abigail Cabada, Alevia Dickens and Jillian Taylor, all members of the Wethersfield High School Key Club. [Photo by Dave Clarke]

Saturday, the Kiwanis Club of Kewanee served up their 74th annual Pancake Day, the civic organization’s biggest fundraiser of the year.

One of the club’s core missions is the support of programs and activities for youth in local schools. Each year dozens of students involved in those programs show their appreciation by tying on blue aprons with a big Kiwanis logo on the front and help serve the hundreds of hungry people who show up for pancakes and sausage.

Kewanee High School Key Club member Jack Anderson serves more pancakes to Bob Celus, of Annawan. [Photo by Dave Clarke]

Over 100 members of Key Clubs at Kewanee and Wethersfield high schools, Builder’s Clubs for seventh and eighth graders at Central, Wethersfield and Visitation schools and members of Circle K at Black Hawk East, filled and refilled drinks, took around seconds of pancakes and sausage and cleared and reset tables in shifts. The breakfast’s six-hour run is held each year from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the basement of the First United Methodist Church.

Retired Kewanee School Superintendent Dr. Chris Sullens gets another cup of coffee from Kewanee High School Key Club member Olivia Ralston. [Photo by Dave Clarke]

Making it easier for members of the student organizations to help was one of the reasons the club moved the event from the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on a Monday, which had been the tradition since it began in 1951, to a Saturday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. in 2011. More club members were also available on Saturdays to help with the event.

On Mondays students couldn’t help until after school and many club members could not get off work until after 5 p.m. The result of the change has been more Kiwanis members available for setting up and taking down the kitchen and dining room, and keeping the pancakes and sausage coming.

The turnout has also steadily increased, in spite of the different day and shorter hours, with over 1,200 people served last year, including around 500 who took advantage of a drive-thru option which began during COVID as a way to keep the event going during the lockdown in 2020. In 2021 the option was continued when the event was able to reopen and return to the church.

Nora Yaklich, of the Central School Builders Club, puts new placements on the tables to make way for more diners. [Photo by Dave Clarke]

As Kiwanis Pancake Day continues to grow, as does the work of the Kiwanis Club of Kewanee and the small army of high school and junior high students who help make it happen each year while learning firsthand the true meaning of community service.

“We couldn’t do it without the kids,” said one Kiwanis member.