SISTER LAKES — Early next month, members of the Sister Lakes Lions Club will be waking up early to fill the Lions Park clubhouse with the smell of fresh maple syrup and sizzling sausages for an upcoming fundraiser.

The Sister Lakes Lions Club will host a pancake and sausage breakfast from 8 a.m. to noon on Sunday, Sept. 2 at its clubhouse in Lions Park, 66991 95th Ave., Dowagiac. The cost is $7 for adults and $3 for children ages 4 to 12. Children under 4 are free. Tickets are available from Lions Club members or may be purchased at the door.

“All the money will go toward Lions Club projects,” said Ron Jacobs, a past president of the Sister Lakes Lions Club. “We have a lot of projects. We help the blind, we have various projects through the district office, we do Christmas baskets for the needy here locally. We have a lot going on. We want to have enough money to work on all the projects we have.”

One of the biggest projects that the Sister Lakes Lions Club funds is its park, which covers a 30-acre area of land in Sister Lakes. The park contains playground equipment, and currently, the club is working with Keeler Township authorities to potentially add biking paths to the park.

“We want the community to be able to use the park. This is one of the few places that there is a community park,” Jacobs said. “We think it is good for the community to use. People use it for picnics and to walk and things like that.”

The club is optimistically looking to raise nearly $1,000 from the pancake breakfast to fund these projects.

“It’s hard to tell how much money we will raise, it really varies year to year,” Jacobs said. “But we tend to keep pretty busy.”

The pancake breakfast has been hosted twice annually for more than three decades by the Sister Lakes Lions Club. In all those years, Jacobs said the breakfast has become a tradition for some, which is why he is hoping a couple hundred people will show up to the event on Sept. 2.

“A lot of people look forward to it as a gathering and social event,” he said. “Our members too. We have people getting up at 4 a.m. to start cooking sausage and getting everything ready. It’s a lot of work and it’s a team effort, but we enjoy it.”

Jacobs said he is hoping for a good response from the community for the breakfast as it will help the Lions Club continue to serve the community through their projects.

“One of our mottos is ‘we serve,’” he said. “That is what we want to do.”