"I encourage people to come in and eat in and sit down and meet someone new, and maybe, pick up with an old friend ... It's the time of year when we need to come together," Dave Sawyer of Lincoln Lodge of Masons in Wiscasset said about a free, Thanksgiving-style meal this Sunday, Nov. 23 at Wiscasset Community Center, 242 Gardiner Road (Route 27).

“We’re going to cook and carve 12 turkeys,” 12- to 15-pound ones, Sawyer said. “It’ll be all picked and ready to serve (along with) stuffing and the Thanksgiving vegetables,” and 150 donated servings of dessert, he said. 

Lucy Oyster of The Friends of the (Wiscasset Public) Library Cookbook Club explained, “Several of us had been talking about, ‘Oh, what would be some great holiday ways to give back to the community?’ And then, my husband (Jake Ackerman) is a new Mason this year, and they had been talking about doing a Thanksgiving dinner.” Cookbook Club members voted in September to help, and now about a dozen members have committed to making a total of 20 pies as a donation to the Lodge, said Oyster, who works at and volunteers at WCC.

"We have a lot of pumpkin pies coming” for the Nov. 23 meal there, Oyster said of the club's contribution. “Several apple pies. We have some custard pies coming. We have apple, cranberry crisp. And myself, I was on the fence” about what pies to make. “I was thinking chocolate, a chocolate pie and a custard pie, but there's other custards happening, and no other chocolate pies. And I feel that for me, the epitome of Thanksgiving is actually a chocolate pie, topped with homemade whipped cream. So I'm probably going to make two of them.”

The idea to put on the free meal came from a lodge brother and the Lodge, Wiscasset Parks and Recreation, the cookbook club, and the local church food pantries the Lodge has done fundraisers for over the years, “have all pitched in together,” Sawyer said.

The event in WCC's Senior Center will run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., unless the meals run out, Sawyer added.

Can't get there for mobility reasons? “Home deliveries for people in the near area,” Sawyer said. “All they have to do is contact the community center (882-8230) and get on the list with their name, address, and phone number and then we'll make sure they get their meal.”

Is the Lodge looking to make the meal an annual event? “We're going to kind of see how it goes,” Sawyer said. “I know we're going to have some bumps in the road.But we're hoping that it’ll be well received and something we could build on." With all the groups helping, he said, "There's a lot of potential here."