Pancake day raises $52K

Andy LaGuardia, Westchester Medical Center”™s director of communications; Michael Saenz, the Newburgh IHOP manager; and Kacey Morabito Grean and Zach Higgins of radio station WHUD who broadcast from IHOP in Newburgh on National Pancake Day.

More than pancakes were stacked up when National Pancake Day was marked recently at area IHOP restaurants. A stack of donations for Maria Fareri Children”™s Hospital in Valhalla totaled $52,188 in a promotion that offered customers at participating IHOP locations a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes. Customers were not required to pay for the pancakes but were asked to leave a donation to benefit the hospital. IHOP staged the promotion nationwide; Maria Fareri was the local beneficiary.

Eleven IHOP outlets in Westchester, Rockland, Orange and Dutchess in New York and Fairfield County in Connecticut participated. In Yonkers, $758 was raised, Larchmont customers contributed $852 and $3,169 was raised in Hartsdale. Other amounts collected included Newburgh, $16,427; Mohegan Lake, $16,000; Middletown, $7,512; Monroe, $2,480; Stamford, $1,600; Poughkeepsie, $1,338; Spring Valley, $1,123; and West Nyack, $929.