Brewer - The Fourth of July is marked by fireworks, and parades, as well as barbeques and time spent with family.

In Brewer the day began at about sunrise with the annual Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast.

" There's a lot of folks that will actually make this their first stop on their Independence Day events that they do whether it's coming over here for pancakes, checking out the parade when it kicks off or maybe the raod race, or maybe they go to camp at that point, maybe they stick around town but we're just glad to have them here first and helping us out," said Bangor Kiwanis Club past President Doug Butler.

Some are regulars, like Ron Howell, who has been at almost every one of these pancake breakfasts, it's how he's started his Fourth for more than 30 years and it's become a tradition.

" In the 70's I used to run in the races but that was a lot of pancakes ago, now I just eat pancakes, my running days are over," said Howell.

" A lot of people make it an event, we do see, I've been involved for about five years now and I've noticed it's a lot of the same folks over and over again and we're always happy to have new folks as well," said Butler.

Like the Eatons, who made their first trip to the breakfast as an unscheduled way to start their day.

" Our plan is, we're from the Corinna area so we're going up with our daughter today and just enjoy a cookout with them," said Kevin Eaton of Bangor. "So we figured we'd go out for breakfast this morning and I see you on the News and I said 'Hey instead of going to a restaurant, let's come over here."

It's the biggest fund raiser of the year for the Kiwanis group and the money will go a long way in the community.

" Everything from supporting an individual child who needs help getting to summer camp," said Butler. "We make donations and contributions to things like Camp Sunshine and Camp Capella and the other ways that we support families and children in the area."

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