Club’s only self-directed fundraiser feeds hundreds, funds vision care across Chowan and Perquimans counties
By Miles Layton
EDENTON — Cade Speary was on his feet by 4 a.m. Saturday, well before sunrise, and he wouldn’t leave until early afternoon. That’s just what it takes to feed a few hundred people pancakes, eggs, grits and sausage — and to keep doing the thing that actually matters to him.
Speary, a past president of the Edenton Lions Club and the organizer behind the club’s annual pancake breakfast, was moving between tables and steam trays at the event’s host kitchen when he took a moment to explain why the Saturday morning scramble is worth it.
“It’s a community event, not just a fundraiser,” he said.
The breakfast, held at Edenton United Methodist Church, drew an estimated 600 to 650 ticketed guests this year, though the crowd was spread across more than just the dining room. Two-thirds of the business came through drive-up service, Speary said, with walk-in diners accounting for the rest. The hospital alone received 120 meals — 60 delivered at 6:30 a.m. for the first shift, another 60 at 8 for the second. A single customer came to buy takeout for his entire baseball team: 20 plates at once. Regulator Marine purchased 50 tickets, as it does every year.
“We probably do two-thirds drive-ups and a third eat-ins,” Speary said.
The club also gave away 20 complimentary tickets through health and human services, distributed to blind residents in the community.
A gallery of photos appears at the end of this story.
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A Kitchen Built for Scale
The logistics behind a breakfast of this size are considerable. Speary said the club used somewhere between 120 and 140 pounds of dry pancake mix. His wife calculated the egg order the night before: roughly 1,500 eggs, and sausage came in at 120 pounds. Grits required 30 pounds of uncooked grits, plus cheese and butter. Wendy’s and McDonald’s donated syrup for the takeout orders, filling a gap that even bulk retailers can’t cover.
More than 25 Lions volunteered to staff the event. Several had backgrounds in food service; Speary does not. The current club president worked the grits station. Speary, by his own account, mostly wandered and made sure things were running smoothly.
“Most everybody in the kitchen has been doing this for at least one time before,” he said. “This is my fourth year doing it, so we’re pretty used to it now and kind of know what to expect.”
The crew that arrived before 5 a.m. had good reason to be early. Sixty plates had to reach the hospital by 6:30.
Where the Money Goes
The pancake breakfast holds a special place in the Lions’ fundraising calendar: it is the only event where the club controls all proceeds.
“This is the only fundraiser we do where we control all the funds,” Speary said.
That money goes toward vision care. The club helps pay for glasses and eye exams for people who can’t afford them. It funds surgeries for children whose eye conditions, if treated before age seven or eight, are far more likely to resolve successfully than if addressed later.
“If they can get surgery or whatever they need before age seven or eight, they’re likely to have a much better outcome than if it’s later,” Speary said.
The club also operates a spot screener — a portable device used to check children from birth to age six for vision problems before they become serious. Lions take the screener to daycares and early elementary schools throughout Chowan and Perquimans counties each year, aiming to reach every facility on the list.
For children who need more comprehensive evaluation, the club arranges for a full vision van — essentially a mobile eye exam and hearing check unit — to come down from Raleigh. The van belongs to Lions Club International, but the Edenton chapter pays to bring it down and covers the cost of the optical technician who staffs it.
Breakfast proceeds also support Lions clubs in crisis. After Hurricane Helene, the Edenton club sent close to $5,000 to clubs in the affected region. It recently sent $500 to help Lions in Hawaii following flooding there. The club has contributed to wildfire relief elsewhere in the country as well.
The club’s other fundraisers funnel money to the North Carolina Lions Foundation, a 501(c)(3) that maintains a camp for the blind on Lake Norman and supports optometry research at Wake Forest, Duke and UNC — institutions where early work on cataract surgery and LASIK was conducted. The foundation also works to provide full college scholarships at any North Carolina state university to children born to two blind parents.
The Edenton club separately awards two scholarships to students at Holmes High School.
Faces That Return Each Year
Speary said the breakfast has a way of making the Lions’ mission visible in a manner that a check to a foundation cannot.
Among the volunteers working in the kitchen on Saturday was a woman who is completely blind. She moved here from Hawaii, Speary said, and before losing her sight had run a restaurant. He noticed her white cane at last year’s breakfast, struck up a conversation, and she ended up joining the Lions Club.
“She used to run a restaurant before she went blind, and she joined the Lions because I saw her at this breakfast last year,” Speary said. “I saw her cane, her white cane, and so I talked to her. And she decided to join the Lions.”
A visually impaired woman from a neighboring Lions club was also present at Saturday’s event.
“I see the same faces every year just about,” Speary said. “So it’s a community event, not just a fundraiser.”
About the Club
The Edenton Lions Club meets on the second and fourth Mondays of each month at Edenton Baptist Church at 7 p.m. Fourth-Monday meetings typically feature a guest speaker — the club has hosted representatives from the hospital, social services, and community organizations. Prospective members are welcome to attend; the club will find a sponsor. Two meetings are all it takes to get a feel for the group.
“It’s usually one of those activities that really hooks people,” Speary said, “whether it’s screening the kids’ vision or doing the vision van or doing some of the other — the roadside cleanup.”
Lions Club International is the world’s largest public service organization, active in more than 200 countries. Membership is growing rapidly in parts of South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, Speary said, while growth in the United States and Europe has slowed.
Back in Edenton, a few hundred people ate breakfast Saturday morning. The kitchen will be scrubbed clean and reset by early afternoon — the church needs it back for Holy Week services starting this week. Speary will be the last one out.
“I will be here probably until one this afternoon,” he said.
Lions’ Breakfast
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