After two years, the Pancake Breakfast is back and ready to serve the community again. On the day of the Apple Blossom parade, May 14 from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. the First Parish Church will be serving pancakes right next to the common. The cost of the event is $8 for adults, $6 for children, and Westford First Responders eat for free.

At the Pancake Breakfast, the church will serve sausages, juice, cereal, and donuts with unlimited coffee and pancakes. There will also be a small stand out in front of the church that will sell snacks for people to eat as they watch the parade.

This event has been running since 1998, when the church hosted their first breakfast. A long term member of the church and one of the founders of the event, Tom Lumenello, said that the church got the idea from the First Parish Church in Chelmsford. The church picked it up because they believed it would be a fun community event.

“We thought the event would be a great opportunity for the community to come together and cook some food,” Lumenollo said.

Lumenello loves to cook and has been head chef of the Pancake Breakfast for all the years that it has been running. Every year since, with exception of the two pandemic years when the church was unable to host the event, the kitchen has been full of church members and local teenagers cooking pancakes together on the makeshift grill.

“We set up griddles all along the kitchen island so there is space for everyone to cook together. No one person can run the whole show,” Lumenello said.

According to treasurer of the First Parish Church, Linnea Flint, the money raised from the breakfast will be used to maintain church programs and for outreach for the community. Funds are also put into grants or donations for charitable organizations that the church supports.

“The money we make will go into our annual budget which helps maintain the historic building that is so prominent in our town center,” said Alison Peternell, head of set-up and long term member of the church.

Peternell has been a member of the church since 1998. The ability to spend with their one’s family and members of the church make the event a fun and exciting day for all. The youth of the First Parish Church community and their friends have been an important part of the event as servers, cooks, and hosts.

“When my kids were teenagers they sometimes were part of the wait-staff so it is a fun family event,” said Peternell.

The Pancake Breakfast brings members of the community together for a town tradition, a morning of food before the Apple Blossom parade begins.

“[I participate] for the fellowship of being with other church members and seeing many people from town. It is a great event to get people together,” said Flint.