IHOP Free Pancake Day is March 12th! Eat pancakes, help kids, here’s how:

Visit participating IHOP locations on March 12th to celebrate IHOP’s Free Pancake Day and help kids treated at Saint Vincent Hospital. It’s easy to celebrate IHOP Free Pancake Day! Here’s how:

1. Visit a participating IHOP location on March 12th and donate to your local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital in exchange for a free short stack of pancakes.

2.Invite your friends and family to join you and share that you’re supporting your local children’s hospital on social media using #FreePancakeDay

You might think it’s just a day to get a free short stack of delicious IHOP buttermilk pancakes, but it actually is a day that makes a BIG difference for kids treated at our hospital. Kids like Kaylee.

Kaylee Machinski was born on October 7, 2005 at 25 weeks gestation. She weighed 2 pounds 1 ounce and was 13.75 inches long. Due to her tiny stature and various complications, she was hooked to multiple machines, connected to IVs, underwent multiple blood transfusions and had to be revived several times. When she was a week old, it was determined she had a brain bleed. Extra fluid was removed from her brain by inserting needles into the top of her tiny head, until she was old enough to have a VP shunt put in after she was 2 months old. Unable to eat naturally throughout the first six weeks, Kaylee was fed through a feeding tube. On day 16, Kaylee’s parents were finally able to hold their fragile baby girl. After 71 long and frightening days, Kaylee was released from the NICU.

Kaylee had to return to the hospital two weeks later because her shunt was infected and needed replaced. The shunt has been replaced 3 additional times throughout Kaylee’s life. Due to the complications of Kaylee’s brain development, she was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy and hydrocephalus. These affect the left side of her body and her eyesight, leaving her to need glasses before the age of one. Kaylee later underwent surgery to extend the muscles in her left leg. She attends frequent doctor’s appointments to monitor her growth, tightness in her left side and her VP shunt.

Why you should help?

Did you know that 62 kids enter a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital every minute? That’s more than 10 million kids every year. Donations raised at IHOP on Free Pancake Day help fund critical treatments and healthcare services, pediatric medical equipment and charitable care.

Thanks to IHOP for supporting our hospital and to all of your for enjoying free

pancakes and helping kids!