Breakfasts raises funds for Y-Tribes

Dads were making pancakes and sausage during the early morning hours on Saturday, but they weren’t cooking in their own kitchens. Instead, fathers who are part of the YMCA’s Y-Tribes program served up breakfast for other parents, kids and community members at the 61st Annual YMCA Y Tribes Pancake Breakfast at the Crescenta-Cañada YMCA on Foothill Boulevard.

The local Y hosts the breakfast every year to help raise funds for the association’s Y-Tribes, a program where fathers and their kids, kindergarten age through third grade, can spend bonding time with each other. In the past, money raised at the pancake breakfast has gone to buy vans for excursions, computers, and also for financial assistance for Y-Tribes members.

In the program, fathers join their children, who are grouped together in same-age/same-sex groups, for various events like pumpkin carving, roller skating, camping or taking trips to Big Bear and Catalina’s Camp Fox. The program runs September through June and activities are scheduled once a month.

“We’re always looking for more dads [to join the program] because it’s a great way for dads to bond with their kids,” said Rick Dennis, executive director of the CC-YMCA.

Jeff Kronson and his 6-year-old daughter Mia, who have participated in the Y Tribes for almost a year, were present at the breakfast. Wearing a tan vest sewn with various activity badges, Kronson, part of the Lost Tribe, “mostly because we couldn’t find our first meeting place,” he joked, said that he joined Y Tribes because it allowed him, a working father, to have protected time to spend with his children.

“I want to make sure I don’t see my kids’ childhood fly by,” Kronson said.