Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Steve Wercinski of Boston dishes up his plate at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4624 breakfast in Hubbell Saturday as Quartermaster Judy Chizek and Air Force ROTC cADET 1ST Lt. Ally Noles look on.

HUBBELL — The community came out to help Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4624 in Hubbell with its pancake breakfast fundraiser Saturday, whether cooking, volunteering or just sitting down to eat.

While the post holds a Veterans Day dinner each year, this was the first pancake breakfast in several years, said Judy Chizek, quartermaster for the post. Saturday’s funds will go towards maintaining the building and providing services to the community.

That includes providing aid to local veterans, whether direct assistance or pointing them in the direction of another resource. It can also mean opening the post after Memorial Day celebrations so veterans and community members can meet in a comfortable environment.

“Just being a small community for the veterans here is very important to us, being able to provide that community that we all had when we were in the service,” she said. “When you come out of the service, it’s not always as obvious.”

With it being the first breakfast at the post in years, Chizek hadn’t known what to expect. But the post did brisk business, reportedly almost filling the upstairs dining area to capacity at its peak.

While Chizek didn’t have exact numbers, “I know we’ve been through a lot of forks,” she said.

Helping out in the kitchen were several members of Arnold Air Society, a service organization of the Michigan Technological University’s Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps, which has worked with the post for years. Projects they’ve done for the post include hosting an annual 5K walk/run, which raises money for the post and builds awareness of prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action.

“That’s probably my favorite one, just because of the message behind it and the monetary value that we can get back to the post,” said Travis Yell, a cadet first lieutenant in his fifth year at Tech.

Lilly Bolliger, a third year cadet/captain, said her favorite project had been serving food at the Veterans Day dinner last year, where she met U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman.

“It was a cool environment, because everybody was there for the same reason,” said Bolliger, who has applied to go into intelligence or data analysis. “And he was also a very nice gentleman that we got to talk to and take pictures with.”

Volunteering with the post over the years, they’ve also gotten to know local veterans and hear about their time in the military.

“It’s nice to have a little bit of understanding and it gives you a better purpose, to go, ‘Oh yeah, this is what I want to do,'” said Ally Noles, a cadet first lieutenant. After graduation, she will go to Great Falls, Montana, where she will be an environmental engineer in a civil engineering squadron.

Yell said while students learn about active duty in their ROTC training, conversations with veterans add a new perspective.

“Talking to veterans who have experienced a lot worse sometimes than what we get in the classroom really tells you about why we’re doing it and what it means for us to go through ROTC and active duty,” said Yell, whose first assignment after graduation will be going to Las Vegas to pilot drones. “It also adds weight to us helping them through Arnold Air Society as well.”

Saturday’s food, which included biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, M&M pancakes, chorizo and more, was the work of Shannon Greathouse, who runs Shannon’s Home Cooking in Gwinn.

She met Post Commander Frank Ozanich through making tamales, leading to her cooking last year’s Veterans Day dinner at the post.

“I try to have normal things that people recognize, and then I’ll put a couple extra things,” she said. “People are more apt to try small bites of something they don’t know if they know they have a fallback of pancakes or something.”

Greathouse will volunteer her time to any veterans post in the Upper Peninsula looking to host a meal. People can call her restaurant at 906-346-2365 or visit the Shannon’s Home Cooking page on Facebook.

“I’m very patriotic, and my family is very military-based,” she said. “I know what they go through to protect certain things we take for granted sometimes.”