Club Cooks Up Free Flapjacks and Fun, Hopes for Blood Donations

Breakfast and blood don't typically add up to a good time, but 16 years have proved differently for the Oak Forest Rotary Club.

Each year the club provides a free pancake breakfast and entertainment for hundreds, but some of the more charitable guests also donate blood during the event. Last year, the club fed more than 700 people, with blood donations from 61 patrons. They hope to beat that record this Sunday, Feb. 13 at with its 17th Annual Rotary Blood Drive and Free Pancake Breakfast.  

In 1994, John Keane and other Rotarians decided to hold a pancake breakfast for the community and make it free for seniors. With only a small group of seniors in attendance, Keane wasn’t satisfied. Something had to change.

“I knew if we had students to entertain, the parents would come and word would eventually spread to everyone else,” said Keane, retired principal of Lee R. Foster Elementary. “So I invited students from District 142 to sing for us and more and more people came every year.”

In ’95, the free breakfast for seniors and firefighters and live entertainment for all built the club a bigger crowd. But the biggest success was yet to come in future years, when the club offered the free breakfast to all attendees with live entertainment from local schools and civic groups.

Free flapjacks draw quite a crowd, and the club thought it could double-up its efforts.

“We have a blood drive four times a year, so we decided to have one of the blood drives during the breakfast every year,” Keane said.

Keane explained that Rotarian Jim Watson became a member in 1975 and started the Jolene Watson Blood Drive, in honor of his daughter that had leukemia.

“Watson first started the blood drive without the Rotary Club, but the Rotary thought it was a great idea and took up the drive,” Keane said.

Watson took a break from the Rotary Club but once he came back he took on the title of Blood Drive Chairman and decided to incorporate the blood drive into the breakfast.

The breakfast is free, but the club will collect $2 donations from adult guests who would like to donate and will have a 50/50 raffle with all proceeds going to the Oak Forest Rotary Club’s College Scholarship Fund.

This year's event will be held from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m at Contact Rotarian Jim Watson at (708) 687-7026 to schedule an appointment to donate blood. Walk-ins will also be accepted.

Entertainment includes:

• 8 a.m.              Oak Forest High School Jazz Ensemble
• 9 a.m.              Oak Forest High School Choir Ensemble
• 9:30 a.m.       Fieldcrest Chorus
• 10 a.m.            Oak Forest Park District Momentum Dance Force
  
• 10:40 a.m.     G. Kerkstra and Lee R. Foster School Choir
• 11:10 a.m.       Jack Hille Jazz and Woodwind Ensembles
• 11:50 a.m.      Pockets the Clown Magic Show                       
• 12:15 p.m.      Legacy Dance Ensemble