The Wauwatosa Kiwanis Club held its annual Pancake Breakfast scholarship fundraiser on the morning of Sunday, March 6th in the Wauwatosa West cafeteria. All proceeds from the event will provide scholarships for Wauwatosa West and Wauwatosa East students. For the past 25 years, the Wauwatosa Kiwanis club has given four, 1000 dollar scholarships to students engaged in community service – two for West students, and two for East students.

Over 150 volunteers from Wauwatosa East and Wauwatosa West student Kiwanis chapters or “Key clubs”, explorer and boy scouts helped run this event. “It’s good to see everyone at West helping the community” said West Junior Katie Adams a member of the West Key Club for three years.

The breakfast went from 8:00am to 1:00pm with an estimated 3000 pancakes eaten. In addition to the “all-you-can-eat” pancakes, sausage and Starbucks coffee, there were games set up in the learning center for kids.

Larry Schneider, a Kiwanis member said “This is not just a breakfast, it’s about community sharing, and it’s really a family event”.
The Tosa East Jazz band played at the breakfast, drummer Tommy Rorabeck ,  said “we’re always happy to play some jazz and put smiles on people’s faces especially when it benefits the community”. The other members of the jazz band were, Peter Garofalo on piano, James Kroner on the bass, and Leonard Simson onthe alto sax.

Although the final amount raised was not available at the time of publication, the annual pancake breakfast made 4,984 dollars in 2010.  However,  attendance has been going down since 2009 when 808 people were served.  In 2011,  640 were served and in 2010, 641 people.

One reason for the drop in turn-out is due to other pancake breakfast fundraiser s being held the same weekend. It is hoped that in the coming years the attendance will go back up, so that the Kiwanis scholarships will continue to be provided for the students of Wauwatosa.

Reporter: Leah Rodgers

Photo: Emily Hoffmann

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