PancakesPancakes, SuccessSuccess, ThanksThanks

Last Sat­ur­day, March 22^nd, the Epilepsy Foun­da­tion of West­ern Ohio put on a pan­cake break­fast fund rais­ing event. It was a huge suc­cess. I was very moved by the out­pour­ing of sup­port I received from fam­ily, friends, and col­leagues who attended, donated, and sup­ported this. Over 170 peo­ple sac­ri­ficed their free time and hard earned money to come to F&S Harley David­son in Day­ton on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing to eat pan­cakes and sup­port the Epilepsy Foun­da­tion. Some came from as far as Ken­tucky, Colum­bus, and even Toledo. The event went off with­out a hitch, due to the efforts of an army of vol­un­teers — all work­ing together to make the day suc­cess­ful. We had numer­ous orga­ni­za­tions donated items for raf­fle, sup­plies for the event, and cash for the cause. Kevin Tibbs, from Boston Stoker, was on sight man­ag­ing the cof­fee he donated. Jeff Stolzen­burg was there at 6:30am to let us in to set up. Travis Brewer led a jeans day at Lib­erty Sav­ings Bank that raised almost $700. He and his wife Corin, also cap­tured the day in pho­tos, which I will soon place on the web as well. They also donated an event pack­age from their own busi­ness, Brewer’s Mem­ory Mak­ers. Local pho­tog­ra­pher, Jim Crotty, donated a beau­ti­ful print for raf­fle. Molly Mahoney ral­lied her fel­low teach­ers and stu­dents at HV Bear Ele­men­tary in Miamis­burg lead­ing to sev­eral hun­dred dol­lars in dona­tions and count­less other con­tri­bu­tions to the event. She also went out and solicited dona­tions from Kroger, Ver­i­zon, MaryKay, Dr. Downer, and Longaberger. Yvonne Reese, my friend and neigh­bor, picked up dona­tions from Square­One, Ket­ter­ing Med­ical Mas­sage, and Inno­v­a­tive Inter­change. She also brought her fam­ily, her sis­ters, and their fam­i­lies to join in the fun. Jon Brooks, from Hafen­brack Mar­ket­ing, not only designed the flyer for the event, he and his youngest son Jake joined us for pan­cakes too. Phil Thorn from Full Tilt Inter­ac­tive donated money to the cause, and David Esrati, owner of The Next Wave, was kind enough to donate the host­ing for PancakesPancakes.com. The Spring­dale Lions club assisted by donat­ing food items and sup­plies for the event. F&S Harley pro­vided us with an amaz­ing loca­tion for the event. Most of the employ­ees came back and joined us for pan­cakes. Best of all, they held the Easter Egg hunt right in the mid­dle of the show­room floor. For­tu­nately, no motor­cy­cles were harmed in the mak­ing of this fund raiser. I had a vision of motor­cy­cles falling like domi­noes, and liq­ui­dat­ing the whole day in the process. Thank­fully, all went well with the Egg Hunt and all went even bet­ter with the event as a whole. In total we raised almost $4,000, all while enjoy­ing the com­pany of friends old and new. I can not over­state how much it means to me to know that there are peo­ple out there who care, and I am lucky enough to know a lot of them. Think that peo­ple can’t change the world? I know 170 pan­cake eaters who might argue oth­er­wise. Thanks again to all who con­tributed. My fam­ily and I are truly blessed to know so many who care so much. Con­sid­er­ing we pulled this together in a few weeks, I am very opti­mistic about what we can do next year. Thanks.

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