SJC Rotarians held their annual Pancake Breakfast for the Swallows Day Parade volunteers on Saturday morning. The event is held each year as a way for the members to show appreciation for the great community of San Juan Capistrano.
Pancake Chair Mark McNabb started the preparations rolling weeks before, lining up all the food, supplies, equipment and fixtures. On Friday morning tents, extra tables and chairs and propane heaters were delivered. Rotarians put down grease proof paper in the cooking areas to protect the floor and tarps in the Scout Hut to protect the carpet. They set up the griddles in a portable kitchen. Others installed sponsor flags and signs surrounding the back yard area. Still more unpacked the eating utensils and put baskets of syrup, hot sauce and creamers on the tables, ready for the next day.
Around 3:30AM on a dark and chilly Saturday, Rotarian Robert Bruch arrived to start the coffee percolating, and staged the food supplies by the cooking areas. By dawn the early shift of Rotarians were hard at work mixing pancake batter, cooking the sausages and scrambling the eggs. They were assisted by the Interact club members who, as always, pitched in wherever needed.
The first Parade volunteers to eat were the security and traffic crew, soon followed by parade staff dressed in their traditional black western wear. Then the Marines showed up, spit-shined, extra polite and grateful for the grub.