Warrior Booster Pancake Breakfast

The July Fourth Warrior Booster Pancake Breakfast began 15 years ago as a way to raise funds for the Tehachapi Warriors Football Team. Ed Grimes and head football coach Steve Denman took on this project which continues to grow like crazy. According to Grimes it's a winner all around, the team players get involved setting up, helping throughout the event and cleaning up, they also sell tickets at the Farmers Market each week leading up to the event. By having the players get involved in the community, they meet new people and develop valuable social skills and self confidence.

The event starts at 8 a.m. on July Fourth at Phil Marx Central Park in town, and runs through 10 a.m. Up at 4 a.m., there are 125 pounds of pancake batter to start which translates to 45 gallons of pancake mix, and 1,200 sausages to cook. Add to that gallons of coffee from Starbucks, and gallons of milk. The "fixin's" are donated by Farmers Brothers, Henry's Café, Albertsons, McDonalds, The Shed, Kelcys, South Street Digital and Starbucks. Ed and his wife Ruthie donate all their time to organize this effort.

It takes a lot of help to accomplish an event of this size and the help is more than qualified. Grimes' wife Ruthie, also known as "The General", oversees the operation making sure gloves are worn, the food is hot and things run smoothly. The cooks this year will be Greg Garrett, City Manager; Joe Sullivan, Former Warden; Zack Scrivner, County supervisor; Susan Andreas-Bervel, School Superintendent; Steve Denman, Head Football Coach; Dennis Ruggles, Asst. Coach; and Bill Carll, Assistant Coach.

This event is a labor of love for all involved. It's a lot of hard work but 100 percent of the proceeds go to support the Warriors team. By the time the event is over, it's all they can do just to make it home, absolutely exhausted.

Last year they made $5,300 which is a record. This year they are trying to raise over $6000, which would be a new record for a day's work; pretty darn good by anyone's standards. You can buy tickets at the Farmer's Market on Thursday, or day of if we haven't sold out of tickets.

The cost is only $5 for two pancakes, two sausages, syrup, butter, milk, and coffee; a pretty good deal if you ask me.