The Kansas State Milling Science Club will fundraise for Cats’ Cupboard by selling pancake mix from 2-6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 14. 

“We’re going to be situated in the first floor of Shellenberger Hall,” Fran Churchill, professor of milling science, said. “Park somewhere on campus and walk over, or you could probably get away with parking in the roundabout there at the north end of Mid Campus Drive. … We’ll take check, cash, credit card as far as forms of payment.” 

According to the Cats’ Cupboard website, it provides K-State students and faculty with “immediate access to food items as well as personal hygiene items at no cost.”

Churchill said she wanted the Milling Science Club to help Cats’ Cupboard out because the work it does has personal importance to her. 

“I graduated from K-State, let’s just say back in the early 1980s, and I had absolutely no money,” Churchill said. “I got my grant, I got my scholarships to pay for everything, and then hopefully there was a little bit left over for rent and food. I look back now and go, ‘Gosh, how did I get by?’ How neat it would’ve been to have had this resource [Cats’ Cupboard] back then.” 

Rylee Williams, student employee of Cats’ Cupboard, said fundraisers like these help the food pantry greatly.

“We rely on our donations from the community and other people, so having anything extra helps us get product and food to students,” Williams said. “Giving us the food and means to make those purchases so that we can buy the food that people need or want that we may not always be able to get [is helpful].”

Brooklyn Terstriep, president of the Milling Science Club, said it works closely with Cats’ Cupboard year-round.

“We try and keep them stocked with our pancake mix, beer bread mix and then just white flour,” Terstriep, graduate in milling science, said. “It’s pretty low-key communication. They let us know when they need stuff, and we bring it over whenever we’re able to.”

Churchill said students from the Milling Science Club make the pancake mix from scratch.

“[The recipe] has been around for a pretty long time and the club has sold it for quite a while now,” Churchill said. “Most of our ingredients are donated by the [milling science] industry. We use the flour that we produce out of our own mill, out of the Hal Ross Flour Mill on North Campus. Students mix it together and pack it. … We do all our packing by hand right now. … It’s a lot of work for the students to do the packaging, but fortunately we have a good core group that puts a lot of work into it.”

Churchill said it was difficult for the Milling Science Club to ensure they had enough ingredients to make pancake mix for the fundraiser. 

“Since everything depends on volunteers and ingredient donations, when we undertake something like this we’ve got to make sure we have everything,” Churchill said. “We’re fortunate here, we can call up Housing and Dining and they’ll sell us ingredients like sugar and salt, baking powder. We had to get an extra order from them to get everything we needed to make the mix.”

Churchill said the pancake mix fundraiser aims to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, also known as Pancake Day, but will be held a day late to increase sales.

“The Bakery Science Club is having their own sale that day too, which is why I did it on Wednesday instead of Tuesday,” Churchill said. “We’re doing it on Wednesday so hopefully we can take advantage of the folks that are coming in to pick up their orders for the Bakery Science Club sale.”

Terstriep said this year’s fundraiser will serve as a test run.

“This year is kind of just seeing what it turns out to be like because we haven’t done it in the past,” Terstriep said. “We’re hoping to get at least three or 400 dollars. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s also the first year and we didn’t have a ton of time to advertise it.”

Churchill said the Milling Science Club hopes to expand its fundraiser for Cats’ Cupboard in future years. 

“My initial thought on this whole pancake mix and Shrove Tuesday was originally I wanted to have some pancake races like they do in Liberal, Kansas,” Churchill said. “… The club, we’re always after them to do some type of service project once or twice a year and I thought this was a great one. … Pancake races aren’t happening this year. I just didn’t get started early enough to get it planned right, but we’re going to do pancake races next year.”