HAILEY HOWELL / FEATURE EDITOR

Many USD students have heard about the Pancakes: Serving Up Hope initiative, but they might not know much about how it’s run. Pancakes: SUH is a student-led initiative supported by the Changemaker Hub that allows USD students to get more involved in their local community. Every other Saturday, a group of USD students spends their morning at the griddle, serving people who live in the East Village neighborhood. It gives students an outlet to make pancakes and connections in the San Diego area by flipping pancakes for those who don’t have access to housing. 

In 2014, USD alumni Will Tate founded Pancakes: Serving Up Hope with the ambition of making a difference in the local community. After a similar club at USD — Pancake Peeps — became a non-profit and split, Tate wanted to continue flipping pancakes and building relationships in the community. Tate reached out to the Changemaker Hub and connected with Director of Social Change and Student Engagement Dr. Juan Carlos Rivas with the proposal to continue serving pancakes. Rivas wanted the initiative to make a strong impact within the local community. He explained his thought process going into the idea before it officially became an initiative supported by the Changemaker Hub. 

“I wanted to make sure that if we were going to take it on as an initiative, it was going to still be student-led and that we would provide a bit more depth to the experience of the people that are running and attending pancakes,” Rivas said. “So by that I mean that people will build better relationships with the community where they visit. This story is really not about us providing food, but it’s about building relationships with people that are experiencing homelessness, period. [The goal is] to get to know each other as people and then the pancakes are just the medium that we use in order for productivity.”

Rivas explained that there were many aspects that the Changemaker Hub considers when taking on an initiative. He described some of the most important elements, including students being passionate about helping others and wanting to build meaningful relationships.

“A lot of people come to the Changemaker Hub hoping to find opportunities to get involved,” Rivas said. “Our  bread  and butter is not doing volunteer work.  It’s one of the ways in which people are most familiar with making a difference or practicing change making. But it’s not the only thing we do, and it’s not the core of what we do. The core of what we do is really engaging with the students to train them on social change processes.”

Pancakes: SUH becoming an initiative, rather than a club, was significant due to the faculty guidance and financial management advice provided by the Changemaker Hub. The initiative operates through funding from the Changemaker Hub, as well as donations made in fundraisers such as Torero Tuesday.

“When  we  do our fundraising, Torero Tuesday, that’s the biggest fundraising day for Pancakes,” Rivas said. “The way that Pancakes always operated was [that] they had supporters, like students that had done pancakes before. [The Changemaker Hub] just chips in a little bit of money. Now, Torero Tuesday becomes a big day where we send an email to anybody who’s been a part of Pancakes before, and the people that are participating now say, ‘Hey, everything you chip in helps us buy the materials.’”

The money from fundraising helps to cover the initiative’s costs, such as the pancake mix and a storage space that’s rented to hold the supplies and grill. 

Pancakes: SUH used to meet once a week, but following the COVID-19 pandemic, the group goes to the East Village area every other Saturday from about 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Due to the time commitment and graduation of student leaders, it was difficult for students to continue meeting weekly. 

“We go every other week, just because it’s not feasible,” Rivas said. “If we had more student leaders to run it … We could alternate  teams. We  have not been  able to  see it  grow in that way  yet  because people graduate.”

USD senior Elissa Mueller took on the role of being a student coordinator last spring after volunteering with Pancakes: SUH. As a student coordinator, her responsibilities include coordinating events, setting up and  getting supplies, as  well as helping volunteers get to the event. The reason she decided to get involved was because of the connections that she formed within the community. 

“I think definitely building relationships is the biggest reason that Pancakes exist,” Mueller said. “You know, we aren’t trying to solve homelessness or hungriness on the streets. It’s just not possible with the kind of bandwidth that we have as students. But building a real connection with the people that we’re serving is really what’s most important.”

One of the problems Mueller notices is a lack of support for this community, which is why this initiative is so significant. 

“Through interacting with the unhoused community, unfortunately I see a general lack of compassion and empathy by the surrounding residents and business owners downtown,” Mueller said. “While much of the unhoused community is quite kept to themselves, it is sad to see how they are continuously pushed to smaller areas of downtown by new developments being   made.  Additionally,  I think  there  needs to be more work done by others to humanize the  unhoused population because I have learned that anyone can end up in that situation.”

Mueller explained that some of her favorite moments with the initiative have been  talking with people and realizing the difference she is making in the community. 

Volunteers grocery shop for pancake supplies to prepare for Saturday morning. Photo of courtesy of @pancakes_suh/Instagram

“Last event, we actually had someone come up to us, and they thanked us,” Mueller said. “They said they weren’t on the street anymore and that they remembered me. And he was like, ‘You’ve been doing this for a long time, right?’ I’m like ‘Yeah, you know, a couple years.’ And he was like ‘I remember you. And I’m not on the street anymore. I got custody of my kids again, working on getting an apartment.’ So  that was  one of the   most  powerful  things  I  think anyone  has  ever  said to me …  I  think  that makes it all worth it.”

Muller also shared that any students who come to help give back to the community are appreciated. Anyone is welcome to volunteer with Pancakes: SUH and that it’s a space for everyone to come together.

“We like to have new volunteers,” Mueller said. “It’s really nice to see a variety of people when we’re volunteering … You don’t have to be great at talking to people to go down there.  If   you  really  love  talking to  people  then  you  can  absolutely do that the whole event, but that doesn’t have to be a strength. We’re also making pancakes and preparing food and all of that too. So being a part of the process is also just as important as having simple conversations.”

The best way for students to get involved is by signing up for the Pancakes: Serving Up Hope newsletter. The newsletter includes a link where students can register to volunteer. 

“When they send out the newsletter to people that want to go, honestly within hours it gets filled up because we can only take 20 people at a time,” Rivas said. “And people want to go. It’s that we haven’t been able to grow the way we want to, like be able to do it all the time. So part of what the hub is doing right now is we’re exploring other venues with other nonprofits … That’s how bayside community food distribution came about … Providing another venue for students to step in to do volunteer work.” 

Though only a group of 20 students are able to volunteer with this initiative, it is making a significant difference. The initiative isn’t just focused on serving pancakes, but giving an outlet  for  students to meet people and form impactful relationships within the community. Students can learn more about Pancakes: Serving Up Hope by joining the newsletter via the link on the initiative’s Instagram page:@pancakes_suh.

Making pancakes helps students build relationships within the community. Photo courtesy of @pancakes_suh/Instagram