DOWAGIAC — Community members who have attended pancake breakfasts in the past may see a new set of hands behind the grill.

Last week, the Dowagiac Lions Club donated a trailer equipped with grilling equipment to the Dowagiac Fire Department.

The fire department hosted members of the Lions Club at the fire station for a grill out to commemorate the donation. A nearly full roster from the fire department joined nine members of the Lions Club.  As members of the Lions Club symbolically handed over their grilling trailer, they also handed over their role as cooks for the pancake breakfast at the Fly In event, hosted on Sept. 21 by the Dowagiac Municipal Airport. The Fly In event is a chance for local families to see aircrafts and meet pilots from across Michigan and northern Indiana.

A few weeks ago, the fire department reached out to the Lions Club asking to borrow its grilling trailer for the Dowagiac Fly In event. That sparked a decision by the Lions Club to donate its trailer to the fire department. The fire department will now own the trailer.

“Well, they said we could use it whenever we wanted it,” said Ron Behnke, president of the Lions Club. “There you got a bunch of young guys — a lot younger than we are anyways.”

The Lions Club, which was formed on July 1, 1952, has struggled to attract young people, Behnke said. The club also was struggling to find cooks for events.

“We donated all the stuff to do the pancake breakfast,” he said. “The fire department is going to be taking over.”

Currently, Ned Sutherland, treasurer of the Lions Club, said the club has 15 Lions, many of whom are in their 80s.

Members of the Lions Club said they felt young people no longer wanted to be part of service organizations like Lions Clubs, Moose or Elks Lodges.

“We went to all the churches, put notes on the windshield and never got one response,” Behnke said about the Lions Club’s search for younger members.

The newest Lion is David Dibble, who moved from Illinois to Dowagiac about five years ago. Dibble decided he wanted to get involved locally and joined the Lions Club.

“It seemed like a good choice,” Dibble said.

Members of the Lions Club said if the group could get more young people to join, then they would have been able to continue hosting the pancake breakfast.

“[Our stuff] is going to a good cause though,” said Bob Longway, another member of the Lions Club.

Tony Miller, a member of the Dowagiac Fire Department, said the donation was gracious of the Lions Club.

Despite a lack of younger members, the Lions Club will continue to support the Dowagiac community by offering scholarships and sponsoring underprivileged families during Christmas and Thanksgiving, as they always have done, members said.

“We give two scholarships each year,” Sutherland said. “Usually, there are about 20 students that apply for it. We have a committee that gets it down to six and then it goes to two. Generally, we pay for the second semester, $500 to each student at whatever college or university they are at.”