Volunteers help with GR senior breakfast

Making sure the pancakes are fresh for those coming in the door is a priority for volunteer Ray Curtis.

For the past 25 years, Curtis has been volunteering for the Golden Hour Senior Center's Breakfast Club. Although the club was officially done for the summer, a few of its members were still helping out the kitchen staff with the public pancake breakfast.

Curtis was one of those and said he'd been volunteering forever. Curtis' job is making sure the pancakes hot and ready before putting them on a plate. He'll wait until he sees people coming up and then he'll put the correct amount of batter on the griddle.

This way the pancakes are always warm for the breakfast goer.

It's hard to tell just how many people will be at the pancake breakfast, which is why they cook pancakes as they come in.

Usually, there is an early crowd that comes in around 7 a.m. After this group is done eating and leaves, the amount of people coming in to eat at the public breakfast tapers off.

"Usually the bad weather brings in a bigger crowd," Curtis said.

However, it was on and off on Friday. Just as he finished saying this the place started to pick up. It was around 9 a.m., by then.

"Oh. The 9 o'clock rush," volunteer Merrillyn Shanebrook said. "One of the bigs ones."

Shanebrook worked quickly to get eggs, bacon and sausage on the plates, while Curtis cooked the pancakes. She said when all 12 of the breakfast club volunteers are there, they set up tables, serve the food and clean up.

"We're just helping out the kitchen today," Shanebrook said. "Usually when the breakfast club does it is when there's a big dinner in the evening so it gives the employees a break."

When a public breakfast takes place at the center, there is no lunch. However, the home-delivered meals still get taken out, which consists of the breakfast meal, pancakes, sausage or bacon and eggs.