250 enjoy flap jacks as fund raiser for St. Teresa's

About 250 folks enjoyed a pancake breakfast from 8:30 until 11:30 Sunday morning at St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church.

A fund-raiser for the church's general fund, the meal was a joint effort between the St. Teresa Ladies' Guild and council 4781 of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's organization.

The ladies' guild set the tables and served, while the Knights cooked. The food was prepared and served in the large, modern kitchen adjoining Chartz Hall in St. Teresa's new location at 3000 N. Lompa Lane. The facility made the fund-raiser easier than the it was at the old location -- now the Brewery Arts Center's Performance Hall, said Jerry Kerfeld, chairman of the breakfast.

"Serving is much easier," he said. "It's an improvement from the past church because that was just a little home kitchen."

The Knights brought their grill trailer to cook the pancakes. Students in the Carson High School shop class mounted the commercial-size grill on the trailer two years ago.

"It used to take four guys to move that thing around. Now it takes one," said Grand Knight Rick Fambrini.

Knights parked it in the lot just outside the back door to the kitchen, grilling cakes, sausage and ham to go with the fresh fruit, coffee, tea, hot chocolate and juice served by the guild.

"Some of the guys have a little competition to see who can flip the most pancakes," Fambrini said.

Eight Knights volunteered at the breakfast, while about 20 helped out from the ladies' guild.

"It's been successful for us as a council and very successful for the parish as a fund-raiser," Fambrini said.

With breakfast costing adults $5 and children under 12 $3, the event raised about $900, according to organizer Joan Wong of the ladies' guild.

It wasn't as big as last year, she said, but there are three more pancake breakfast coming up in July, August and September.