That special day for sweethearts can start a little sweeter this February with the annual Ironton Rotary Club pancake breakfast.

“It is always the second Saturday in February,” Massie Schemmel, club president, said. “This time it’s on Valentine’s Day.”

The longstanding community tradition that started in the 1970s and draws approximately 500 diners gets the Rotarians up at 5 that morning.

“We cook all the sausage and get the grills fired up,” she said. “But we start the day before setting up tables.”

Schemmel may be the club’s president but she won’t be front and center that morning. Instead she’ll be in the back kitchen conjuring up the secret recipe for the flapjacks.

“I’ll be on batter duty,” she said. “We have two mixers going and mix and mix and mix until it slows down. My hair smells like pancake batter for days.”

On average the club nets about $3,000 from the five-hour event that goes back into the community, whether it funds Rotarian projects or club’s contributions to Ironton.

“It goes to benefit the dictionary drive where every third-grader gets a dictionary, the Halloween parade and contest and the (downtown Ironton) fountain cleanup and beautification,” she said. “And we give to a lot of groups locally like Ironton In Bloom, Secret Santa and the mission.”

The breakfast runs from 7 a.m.-noon at the former AEP building on South Third Street. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased from any Rotary member.

“It is a huge event, the party of the year,” Schemmel said. “It has been going on for so long. They see people they only see one time a year.”