Building Community, One Meal at a Time

For more than half a decade, freshly-made pancakes have been a vehicle to community building for USD alumna Amory Fratoni ’15 (BA). 

Fratoni is the lead operations supervisor for Pancakes Serving Up Hope, a volunteer organization that provides hot breakfasts for people experiencing homelessness in San Diego. “The pancakes are the meal, but it’s way more than that,” Fratoni says. “It’s really about the community and the relationships that you are able to build — just talking to people can seriously change their day in a second.” 

Fratoni, a senior payroll manager at Aya Healthcare, has met hundreds of people during her time serving flapjacks in a parking lot at K and 14th streets in San Diego’s East Village.  

One specific encounter is top-of-mind when asked what validates her tireless efforts. A woman named Stacy joined the pancake line week after week but rarely spoke to anyone, Fratoni recalls. “She was always very quick to get her food. Every weekend, I would make a point to talk to her or just say ‘hi’. At the end of our sessions, the volunteers circle up and we have a conversation about that day. We often have folks we’re serving join the group.” 

“One Saturday, she was in our circle,” Fratoni continues. “She thanked us and pointed specifically at me and said, ‘I want to thank you because you have said hi to me every single day I’ve seen you’. She then told me the story of how she had overdosed on the sidewalk downtown before I had met her and people just stepped over her and there was one person who actually stopped and got her help, so she appreciated that I went out of my way to say hi. Nobody should have to go through those experiences alone. This is bigger than pancakes. It’s bigger than me. It really does impact people’s lives”

USD double alumnus Will Tate ’18 (CNP), ’19 (MS) founded Pancakes Serving Up Hope in 2014 with support from USD’s Changemaker Hub. Each Saturday, Tate, then an undergraduate, and other volunteers — including other USD students — would head downtown to flip pancakes for the local community. The objective: to build relationships and trust.

“Will is one of those unique people who just has the biggest heart for other people,” Fratoni says. 

Shortly after graduating, Fratoni, who was working with a local church, joined Tate downtown. All it took was one experience and she was hooked. The two served as leaders for several years, and when Tate moved away from San Diego, Fratoni took the reins. 

“I got more and more involved, and before the pandemic, I can’t tell you a Saturday I missed in three years. Any given Saturday, we would have upwards of 200 people come through the line.” 

Everything changed in March 2020 with the onset of the pandemic. “We couldn’t go down there because it wasn’t safe, but we knew there was still a need,” Fratoni says. 

Working with Changemaker Hub Director Social Change and Student Engagement Juan Carlos Rivas, PhD, the group partnered with People Assisting the Homeless (PATH) San Diego to continue providing monthly meals for people experiencing homelessness. For the better part of three years, the volunteers found creative — and safe — ways to stay involved. But the effort was reduced to meal delivery with no social interaction due to health and safety protocols.

On the heels of the height of the pandemic, the group is back to their usual location. They began once a month and are currently operating twice per month. 

“We are in the process of rebuilding the community and making sure people know who we are and where we are at. The first weekend back, I walked about four miles around downtown letting people know the pancake line was back and they were hopping on their bikes flying back up to the location.” 

The process has returned to what it has always been — upwards of 25 volunteers meet at USD and then head downtown. The set-up includes two camper grills attached to two propane tanks, cast iron skillets, whisks, spatulas, a massive mixing bowl and a 25-pound bag of pancake mix. All the food is funded by donations. 

“It’s an assembly line. We can cook 16 pancakes at a time and the next table is where you have the toppings like butter, syrup and chocolate chips. Around the holidays, I try to bring things like candy canes on Valentine’s Day and candy on Halloween. We also give everyone a banana and a bottle of water.” 

Moving forward, Fratoni hopes to get back to making ‘Pancakes’ a weekly initiative, but she also knows continued efforts will one day have to fall to the next iteration of volunteers. 

“Right when I was out of college, I had all the time in the world, but now I’m very busy,” she says. “In an ideal world, we would get back to every weekend. I would love to keep it going and that means getting a strong group of people on campus who can be reliable on weekends.”

For more information on how to get involved, www.pancakessuhope.org 

— Story by Matthew Piechalak; Photos by Barbara Ferguson