Pancake Breakfast

PANCAKE BREAKFAST WAS A HIT ....

What a great event the Drive Thru Pancake Breakfast was for the Lions Club of Paris. The Paris Lions Club has not been able to run its Maple Syrup Festival since 2019. COVID has prevented the kind of face-to-face close contact that it takes to run a festival of that nature. In the past the Festival happened on Grand River Street between Mechanic and William Street. Over 50 vendors, a music program and of course pancake breakfasts. 2022 saw the Festival cancelled for yet another year. The Club wanted to find a way to keep the community aware of and thinking about the Festival once COVID was under control. So the answer was a drive through pancake breakfast. There were a few challenges to overcome to make the event successful. First, how to manage orders online? So people could order the meal from our website, select the pickup time and pay for their order. Second, the food booth needed to be prepared for the season with propane certification, fire suppression certification and a good cleaning. Third, was getting the right pancake mix (just add water), sausage, syrup options and all the other supplies ( clam shells, butter, knife/fork/napkin, etc.). Fourth was promoting the event to the local community. Advertising is always a tricky thing. On-line promotion gets a certain group or generation of people. Single page tri-fold brochure distributed through local vendors is still very effective. A big THANKS goes to those vendors. Fifth is the group of Lions that made it happen. It took roughly a dozen members to pull it off. Some got the supplies ahead of the event. One member mixed the batter, two members cooked the pancakes, two cooked the sausage, two pulled the order together, two delivered the meals to the cars as the public picked up the orders. The Lions sold 117 breakfasts. In that group were 2 meals with extra syrup; 6 with extra sausage; 6 with extra pancakes. Some folks purchased maple syrup, so we sold 14 1 litre jars; 8 500 ml jars; 1 250 ml jar and 1 100 ml jar. The Club grossed around $1,600 for our mornings work. Thanks to the public who purchased our products. The Lions motto is “We Serve”. Those funds will find its way back into the community. Let's hope that next year we can go back to the street festival on the 2nd weekend in April.

Ken Linington

President Lions Club of Paris