Whether you call it Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday, or Fat Tuesday, Pawnee Mental Health in Manhattan knows how to celebrate it.
Pawnee Mental Health held their third annual “Pancakes for Pawnee” event on Tuesday night. Robbin Cole, Pawnee Mental Health Executive Director, says the Shrove Tuesday tradition continues to be a success.
“Pancakes for Pawnee, what better kind of an opportunity,” Cole says. “And to do it on Pancake Tuesday, just made every bit of sense.”
Cole says that the pandemic did force some changes upon the event this year. This year all of the pancakes were served in a curbside pickup and delivery fashion rather than dine-in. She says that even despite those changes, the event was still a success.
“Frankly, when I think about the fact that we have already delivered more than 150 pancakes and we are not even at the end of hour number one, I think that’s pretty incredible,” Cole says.
She adds that on top of the pandemic adjustments, the weather also played a role in the event. However, Cole says there is nothing like hot pancakes and hot sausage on a cold night.
“We’ve had a lot of people come through who are just making spontaneous decisions that breakfast for dinner sounds really good tonight, and in some ways, I think the weather sort of contributes to that.”
Cole says along with those making the spontaneous stop, 300 people signed up for advanced ticketing. She says that they are grateful for the support and talks more about the proceeds.
“These funds will go towards helping pay for services for people who don’t have health insurance to pay for the full cost of the services that they provide,” Cole says.
She adds more on just how important the fundraiser truly is.
“This is going to directly help members of our community who have needs for mental health care and who don’t have the ability to pay for that mental health care that they need.”
To hold this event the past three years, Pawnee Mental Health has teamed up with Early Edition Restaurant. Marcy Uphoff, restaurant owner, says that the breakfast for dinner fundraiser is always a hit and that she is grateful to be a part of it.
“We just really think they provide a great service to our community,” Uphoff says. “And when we first started it, they were just working on their crisis stabilization center which we thought was really an important thing for our community, so that kind of got us rolling and we just know all the good things that they do and we just want to support it.”
Last year the “Pancakes for Pawnee” event raised around $17,000.
