Pancakes on track to raise $40K
The annual breakfast draws a huge crowd to the Civic Center for the Optimist Club’s largest fundraiser.
You know you’ve got a winner of a fundraiser when you need law enforcement personnel out for traffic control. So it was Saturday at the Rome Optimist Club’s 58th annual pancake breakfast at the Rome Civic Center. It’s not unusual to need help early on, but the parking lot was full through the morning as Romans came in for their annual meal of pancakes and fresh ground sausage.
Optimist Club President
Bob Puckett said it looked like the club would serve around 2,000 plates.
“You can see how busy it is and the line is out the door,” Puckett said more than four hours into the breakfast. “This is a total success thanks to the people of Rome and Floyd County. We should raise close to $40,000.”
Puckett said that 100 percent of the funds raised by the breakfast will be used for programs that impact boys and girls in Rome and Floyd County.
“We do not retain a single dollar for operations, all that is done through dues, so everything that comes in here today goes to the kids,” Puckett said.
American Legion Post 5 Commander Steve Rood brought members of his extended family out to the breakfast, as he does every year.
“It’s good eats,” Rood said. “They do a lot of good things for kids. It’s a great organization.”
The club has the breakfast down to a science with multiple pancake and sausage griddles going so the line moves quickly.
Club member Larry Morrow said the event is a big deal for the club.
“It IS our largest fundraiser,” Morrow said. “It’s great to have something like this and it’s great to see all the people come out and support us. I’m just glad to be a part of it.”
The Club offers a number of scholarships for youth each year, honors high performing students from the local schools through its youth of the month program and sponsors an annual oratorical contest that usually is based around an optimistic theme.
The Rome club, which meets on Mondays at noon at the Three Rivers Club in State Mutual Stadium, will celebrate the 70th anniversary of its charter at its Dec. 3 meeting.