The Wednesday Morning Breakfast Club
Every Wednesday during the school year, Peggy Winckowski, better known as "Grandma Peggy", wakes up before the sun to prepare homemade pancakes, eggs, bacon, and other breakfast items for a crowd of Bishop DuBourg High School students.
Peggy Winckowski ices homemade cinnamon rolls in her home in the Boulevard Heights neighborhood of St. Louis on Wednesday, March 26, 2025. She gets up at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesdays to cook everything before the students arrive at 7:30 a.m.
As a freshman in high school in 2021, her grandson Sam Crowe spent Wednesday mornings before school with his friends at a local diner.
"He said, 'Grandma, you make better breakfast than they do,'" Peggy said, so she invited the group to her house for their weekly breakfast ritual.
Attendees to the Wednesday Morning Breakfast Club dig into the food in Peggy Winckowski's home in St. Louis on Wednesday, March 26, 2025.
Bishop DuBourg high schoolers, from left, Cory Macke, Harrison Newcomb, Jake McDermott and Jeremy Roeder joke around while serving themselves breakfast in Peggy Winckowski's home in St. Louis on Wednesday, April 2, 2025.
Four years later the tradition continues, but without its founding member.
In July 2022, Sam was hit by a car and suddenly passed away.
Mementos and cardinals decorate a windowsill in remembrance of Sam Crowe after his passing in 2022, as seen in his grandmother Peggy Winckowski's home in St. Louis on Wednesday, March 26, 2025.
The kids checked on Peggy every day until his funeral and mourned the loss together.
They thought breakfast club was over.
"If you will come I will feed you," Peggy said.
Peggy Winckowski, right, watches for more breakfast club attendees as Bishop DuBourg High School students, from right, Jeremy Roeder, Cory Macke and Colin Crowe, Sam Crowe's cousin, eat in her home in St. Louis on Wednesday, March 26, 2025.
Breakfast options are spread on Peggy Winckowski's kitchen island as Bishop DuBourg high schoolers eat on the back porch of her home in St. Louis on Wednesday, April 2, 2025.
Peggy keeps up to date on their classes, sports, relationships, jobs, and future career goals. Kids who have graduated already even come back to visit during breaks.
Peggy Winckowski, right, listens as, from left, Jake McDermott and Harrison Newcomb decide who to spray with a water gun in her home in St. Louis on Wednesday, April 2, 2025.
Peggy Winckowski, right, lets Maddie Ruggeri, center, and Olivia Gagen pick out cardigans from her collection during breakfast club at her home in St. Louis on Wednesday, April 2, 2025.
The students take care of Grandma Peggy as well. They attend church with her every year on Sam's birthday and most recently painted her house as part of a service project through their school.
When Peggy's daughter and Sam's mom Kimberly Dangler was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in January 2025, students drove Peggy to-and-from the hospital. And after she passed away, every breakfast club attendee paid their respects at Kimberly's funeral.
"My Sam had a plan," Peggy said. "He didn't want his grandma to be lonely."
2025 is the year Sam would have graduated high school along with many of his friends, so the future of the breakfast club is uncertain as most of the current attendees enter adulthood.
Peggy Winckowski hugs Olivia Gagen goodbye and holds her hand after breakfast club at her home in St. Louis on Wednesday, April 2, 2025.
But she faces the question with her quick smile and jovial laugh.
Peggy and the kids know the "I love yous" they exchange before they leave don't end on Wednesday mornings.
They have Grandma Peggy for life.
Peggy Winckowski hugs Jake McDermott goodbye as Brendan Crowe, Sam Crowe's cousin, waits his turn at her home in St. Louis on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. All the kids get hugs as they arrive for breakfast and line up to hug her before leaving for school.
For the St. Louis Post-Dispatch