Adult, Student Service Clubs Are 'Key' at Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast

A light snow Sunday morning couldn't curb the appetites of more than 600 hungry supporters who turned out for a hearty pancake breakfast at to raise funds for college scholarships.

Hosted by the Kiwanis Club of Wauwatosa, the annual Pancake Breakfast is the principal event for providing four $1,000 scholarships to Wauwatosa high school students.

Ken Snyder, the fundraising chairman for the Kiwanis, said he couldn't be sure but he thought the breakfast had been held each year for about 20 years – "give or take one or two."

From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., members of Kiwanis and the high school Key Clubs – student community service groups at and West, also sponsored by Kiwanis – doled out hearty helpings of pancakes, sausage and applesauce along with coffee and juice.

West High School Resource Officer Doug Braun of the Wauwatosa police said that 130 West students belong to Key Club this year, with a similar number at East. Braun is co-adviser to the West Key Club along with Barb Lauenstein.

"That's actually down a little," he said. "In past years we've had as many as 150 here, but we're proud that we're getting more boys involved.

"It used to be almost all girls, but now about one-third of the number are boys, and they're even running for leadership positions in the group."

Braun was joined for breakfast about mid-morning by Officer Jeff Griffin, who was formerly SRO at East High – and that proved a nice surprise for him and one event worker who didn't expect to see a familiar face.

Rachel Griffin of Hartford was assisting her boss, Dan Henneberry of Henneberry Pancakes Inc., with the job of producing about 1,800 hot, fresh flapjacks as the morning progressed.

She mentioned she had relatives in Wauwatosa – including her Uncle Jeff, who promptly showed up, neither knowing the other would be there.

Henneberry, an engineer for a Milwaukee firm, moonlights traveling the Upper Midwest providing a "mobile pancake service" with portable, modular, gas-fired griddle tables of his own design and construction.

"We can serve up to 5,000 people," Henneberry said. "My father founded the business in 1968, when I was 2. I've been doing this since I was 10 and I bought the business in 1999.

"I've served – oh, millions and millions of pancakes, I'd say."

Kiwanis President Taylor Poehls said later Sunday that 630 plates had been served and altogether about 700 tickets sold.

"It was a good turnout," Poehls said, "up from last year, and we sold enough to fully fund our scholarships for this year."

The next major event for the Kiwanis and Key Clubs is Relay for Life on June 1.

Officer Braun said that the last time the Relay had been held at West, "500 kids were going around that track all night and they raised $17,000 for the American Cancer Society."