If Corey Jacques saw someone broken down on the side of the road, he stopped to help. He loved making people laugh and, when the 6 o’clock alarm woke him and wife Sharon at their Lowelltown Road, Wiscasset home in the morning, he would hold her until the second alarm.

He had courted her like a school boy, asking her if she would be his girl.

Sharon Jacques said all of those things and more made her husband of 16 years the love of her life. She lost him July 9, to a heart event while they were boating on Damariscotta Lake. It turned out he had hypertensive cardiac disease, she said.

“This wasn’t supposed to be our lives. This wasn’t supposed to be our daughter’s life,” Jacques said July 27. She and daughter Haley, 8, are doing OK hour by hour, day by day, but his not being there still makes no sense, she said. Now, she thinks she may have found a way to bring some meaning to it.

At the same time, the couple’s friends Rodney and Bonnie Toothaker are working on a benefit for the mother and daughter. It’s Thursday, Aug. 17, from 4 to 8 p.m. at Montsweag Roadhouse in Woolwich. The Route 1 restaurant is donating the barbecue dinner and the use of the space, Rodney Toothaker said July 26.

A $10 admission, $5 for children 10 and under, will be collected at the door.

Toothaker recalled feeling disbelief over his friend’s death. The two saw each other the day before, and Jacques gave him the biggest hug he had ever gotten, Toothaker said.

Toothaker said benefits he has done for other causes have raised thousands of dollars. “This one, to me, is hard, because it touches home.” The community is responding with donations to the live and silent auctions. The list so far includes a football New England Patriots Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman signed, a Patriot’s jersey Edelman signed, a baseball Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox signed, a Celtics jersey Isaiah Thomas signed, a jersey Magic Johnson signed, Red Sox tickets, an Invicta watch, and donations from Dr. Coffin's Garage, Cantrell's Seafood, Bert's Irving & Service Station, Karyn Rawson Photography, Crooker's, Kimberly Howard Photography, Quanoset, Servpro, Bill Dodge, Marco Madness Tattoo, Midcoast Painting & Restoration and M.W. Sewall.

To donate an auction item, call the Toothakers: Rodney at 837-8001, or Bonnie at 522-4067.

Chris Johnston, who co-owns Montsweag Roadhouse with Jenny Steiner-Johnston, said he didn’t know Corey Jacques personally but the two had many mutual friends, and offering the space and dinner for the fundraiser was a no-brainer. The restaurant does a lot of things like that,  he said. “We’re a community place.”

Sharon Jacques expressed thanks and gratitude for the fundraiser and other help, financial and otherwise from the community in recent weeks, including the words of support she has received from people who were at the lake July 9, letting her know the family is in their hearts and prayers, she said. “At a time in my life when I’m truly heartbroken, I am absolutely blessed.”

The boat had run out of fuel and was being towed when her husband fell from it, she said. He was wearing a life jacket and likely had already passed out when he entered the water, she said. If he hadn’t had on the life jacket, he could have been lost and possibly not been found, Jacques said. She said the life jacket didn’t save him because he died of a natural cause, but without it, “He might have been lost from us.”

Jacques said she thinks she would like to work on getting out the message to wear life jackets for that reason, as well. Even when it cannot save a person, it can help the families, she said. “That would give some meaning to this tragedy.”