Flipping their way to $800, juniors at the Traverse City Christian School are that much closer to their senior mission trip next year.
The second annual pancake breakfast fund-raiser again featured Chris Cakes — whose motto is "Catch It or Wear It” — making the more than 320 attendees work for their food. Chef and owner Trevor Muir of Clare, cooks the cakes and then flings them at diners lined up with plates held at ready. They catch them or they go hungry, although Muir is a kindly person who always gives second (and third) chances. Members of the junior class stood at attention with dustpan and broom, swooping in quickly to sweep up errant cakes.
"We've fed four presidents: the two Bushes, Clinton and Reagan,” said Muir, who travels to 12-13 sites a month all over Michigan.
Adding fun to the fire, a parent of a junior got together the night before and fashioned a bevy of pancake catching devices using a badminton racket, fishing pole, various hats and a baseball bat. Muir played up to these devices, sending hopeful diners farther back or giving tips on the best way to snare a flying flapjack as he doled out more than 400 of them.
"I tried the hat and did the racket and caught half of one on that,” said Brian Buttrick, 10, who enjoyed the morning meal with his family.
Junior Mike McCauley focused more on the buttermilk, whole grain pancakes than the catching.
"I ate five pancakes, I love pancakes,” he said.
Each year the school's senior class completes a mission trip to minister to a community, both physically by completing projects and spiritually by sharing and being a living example of God's word.
"It's a great way to witness to people, you never know when you're going to get the opportunity,” said junior Anne Friedlander. "But when you go on a trip, you know you will.”
This year's crop of 30 seniors was in Costa Rica completing their mission trip during the fund-raiser. Previous senior classes worked at orphanages in Jamaica and Friedlander noted that the destination next spring of her 21-member class is still under discussion.
The students already have one mission trip under their belts as the whole school traveled to Mississippi in January of 2006 to help with clean up from Hurricane Katrina. Three buses of students plus numerous cars of chaperoning parents all headed south together to help a community rebuild and clean up after the devastation.
"It was really fun because it's something you don't learn in school: how to talk to people and how to do construction,” said Friedlander. "I think it really challenged my faith a lot because people will ask you questions.”
Class advisor Mike Rozeboom, a literature, speech, drama and theater teacher at the school, said that the students benefit from the broadened horizons of the trip.
"They get out of their cultural bubble and see how other people struggle,” he said. "It'll be the last time they are together, too. I know with senior trips, often times other schools are too big for them to go abroad so this is a neat opportunity for a small Christian school.”
Over the summer the students will continue their fund-raising with car "drys,” where they towel off cars at a parent-owned car wash business to garner tips. Given the school's strong tradition of mission trips, the money gathering for each class actually begins in the seventh grade when they entered the school.
"The fund-raising starts from when they come in to Traverse City Christian School,” said Rozeboom.