17th Annual Herman DeVille Memorial Pancake Breakfast

We can’t remember when our first Pancake Breakfast was held, all we know is it was some time ago. Back then, Odd Fellows and Rebekah lodges would hold many such breakfasts. Some would be big and many would be small. But whatever they were, they would be supported by many members of all lodges. In the area the breakfasts would have a theme, like St Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day or even Mother’s Day. The money would either go to either pay the rent or go to some favorite charity. And so it was for our lodge, until 2008. What happened then?   Well one of our hard-working Brothers, Herman DeVille, who was a Trustee, a handy man who spent many long hours at the lodge, and who also spent time organizing Cupertino’s Pancake breakfast every year. He was the main cook.  In 2007, he developed cancer and he spent long hours fighting a losing battle. He passed away on 8/10/07. We were all devastated, especially Betty his wife.

The next time we held our pancake breakfast, we asked Betty who she would like to donate the money we collected for. After a short time, she replied PAMF, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, to families with cancer. So, our Herman DeVille Pancake Breakfast was born.

Since then, we have been holding them every year, normally in March. The lodge would pay for all the food and supplies, and all donations would go to the charity, including the Lodges donation which would always round it up to some round number. The later years, when we were fortunate enough to have rent income, the donations were larger. Betty had a large family, and they all came and helped out with the breakfast. Some cooked, like her son, others took orders like her young grandson and others served. This continued every year until Betty moved to Sacramento. The first several years the donations continued to PAMF for cancer families, and then we changed it to cancer research at PAMF. Then later Michael Greenzeiger mentioned that he was a cancer survivor when he was a child in Boston, so we donated to the hospital that treated him. We also heard that the City of Hope has a very good program in cancer research, so we switch to supporting them. The one thing that continues is that the lodge members all support this and come all out to make this breakfast a special successful event. Each year it gets a little bigger and we seem to make more money for fighting cancer.