Hours before the Seahawks and Patriots took the field for the Super Bowl on Sunday, dozens of West Hempstead residents gathered to raise funds for a good cause.
Despite the frigid weather, the West Hempstead Lions Club held its annual Super Bowl Pancake Breakfast fundraiser. Members gathered at the West Hempstead Secondary School’s South Campus Cafe to decorate and prepare a breakfast feast, which also featured raffles and photo ops.
“The pancake breakfast is something that other Lions clubs across the country do,” Mia Murphy, club president, said. “We raise money to use over the course of the year for other community events, such as our annual Easter Egg Hunt.”
For a $10 fee, adult community members enjoyed an all-you-could-eat breakfast that included pancakes, waffles, scrambled eggs, sausages, bagels, coffee, tea and juice. The fee was $5 for kids ages 6 to 12 and free for kids under 5. Raffles prize baskets offered wines, Valentine’s Day gifts and gift cards for local businesses.
The Lions began hosting the breakfast in 1979. “When I became the district governor of Nassau County, we needed some funds to help get things going,” longtime member Al Brandel recalled, “so that was the first pancake breakfast we had.”
Brandel joined the West Hempstead club in 1975, and became district governor in 1980. He went on to serve as international president of the organization in 2008.
The inaugural breakfast was held at the American Legion Hall, on Woodlawn Avenue. Over the years it became a local tradition on Super Bowl Sunday morning, and it later moved to the secondary school.
“It’s one of our largest fundraisers, and it’s become a staple in the community,” Brandel said. “Everybody comes — they look forward to this day before the Super Bowl.”
The Lions not only raised money for the club, but also collected donations of toiletry items for the INN, a Hempstead-based nonprofit that provides food and shelter to those experiencing homelessness, hunger and poverty.
Diners also participated in a cash-prize Super Hero Raffle for the benefit of the Brandel-Murphy Youth Foundation.
“When I finished being international president, the Lions usually give the outgoing president a car,” Brandel said. “I didn’t need a car, and they had the money, so I said, ‘Let’s make a fund and start helping kids across New York state.’”
Brandel and his wife, Maureen Murphy, created the foundation in 2009. Brandel, a retired Nassau County police detective, worked with children suffering abuse and neglect. Murphy had also worked with children as a pediatrician and a pediatric anesthesiologist. “Children have been very close to our heart,” Brandel said.
The foundation provides matching grants for Lions Clubs in New York and Bermuda, which is included in the New York Lions Club district, to help fund projects they can’t afford to do on their own to help children in need.
The breakfast also featured a display of posters entered in the Lions Club International Peace Poster Contest, in which students ages 11-13 draw pictures that illustrate a theme chosen by the organization. This year’s theme is Harmony in Humanity.
“I encourage anyone and everyone to look up Lions Club International and learn a little bit about what the organization does across the world,” Murphy said. Anyone interested in joining the West Hempstead club can visit its Facebook page for more details.
