Lakewood Police Officer George McGlynn admitted he doesn’t always deal with nice people.
Therefore, he enjoyed volunteering at the eighth annual Cops That Cook event Friday, Sept. 15, at the Clements Community Center, 1580 Yarrow St.
The charity event had Lakewood police officers cooking up industrial amounts of pancakes and pork sausages for the early morning crowd.
For the officers, the event was a chance to help the community and shoot the breeze in a way perhaps infrequent for cops but common to short-order cooks.
“Should I go out onto Colfax and ask people to come in?” Sgt. Jeff Cohn asked facetiously about 7:30 a.m. Chief Ron Burns cautioned him to be patient as the rush last year hit at 8 a.m.
Officers Mike Ferguson and Dutch Smith worked in the kitchen’s corner, diligently meting out pancakes from the 7-pound bags of Krusteaz Buttermilk.
At 7:40 a.m., there was a power outage. However, it lasted less than a minute.
“You’ll hear that every year now,” McGlynn said. “’Remember the year the lights went out?’”
After experimenting with happy-face pancakes, McGlynn was purveyor of his own concoction, in which he cooked lengthwise pancakes and rolled them over sausages.
“We don’t like to use the word ‘pigs,’” McGlynn said. “These are cops-on-a-blanket.”
As the specialty item was peddled as cops-in-a-blanket, some of the customers seemed to get the joke. Others seemed confused.
The Cops That Cook fundraiser raised money for the Lakewood Project Lifesaver Program, a partnership between Lakewood Police, Clements and the nonprofit Rise Above. The program funds equipment and resources that help locate adults or children — afflicted by Alzheimer’s, Down Syndrome or autism — who wander away from their homes or facilities.
After expenses, the eighth annual Cops Thank Cook raised $717.50 for the Lifesaver program. The money will finance tracking bracelets to be worn by patients, which will facilitate locating them should they wander away.