Longtime Wiscasset resident Doris Pendleton, 85, is one of Wiscasset Senior Center’s newer members. She joined a couple of years ago, because she hates eating alone, she said.

“And I like to see the people,” she added.

There were more people to see than usual the night of Wednesday, Sept. 30. Wednesdays are the night for weekly public suppers at the senior center, located inside Wiscasset Community Center on Gardiner Road. But the Sept. 30 one celebrated the seniors group hitting the 25-year mark.

“So this is kind of a special one,” Senior Center Chairman Arlene Polewarczyk said. The center’s members invited several local dignitaries to join them for lobster or chicken cordon bleu. Fifty-seven people ate, Polewarczyk said.

Wiscasset Selectmen’s Chairman Ben Rines Jr., Vice Chairman Judy Flanagan and Selectman Jeff Slack were there, along with Wiscasset Town Manager Marian Anderson, Wiscasset Police Chief Troy Cline, Wiscasset Police Sgt. Kathy Williams and Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett.

Polewarczyk viewed the guests’ RSVP’s as a show of support for the senior center’s efforts to manage costs and offer activities that members want and will attend.

“It pleased us an awful lot, because we felt that they are really beginning to believe that we are worth the effort to help support. We’re getting pretty good at supporting ourselves, but we still do need some support from the town,” Polewarczyk said.

Between the salad and the main course, selectmen presented Polewarczyk and past chairmen of the senior center with a proclamation honoring the seniors group’s anniversary.

“Be it known that we, the Wiscasset Board of Selectmen, on behalf of the citizens of Wiscasset and beyond, convey our best wishes and congratulations (and) with this proclamation, let it be known, of our sincere appreciation for the great work the members of the Wiscasset Senior Center have done on behalf of all of our citizens,” the proclamation reads.

“We look forward knowing the good work of your first 25 years will continue guaranteeing a better future for all of us,” it concludes.

Rines said afterward that his father Benjamin Rines Sr. had been a member. “This place was a blessing for him.”

The senior center has more than 70 members, down in recent years from some counts of about 100 or more, Polewarczyk said. She expressed optimism for the future of the center that hosts the suppers, cribbage games and blood pressure clinics. A flu vaccination clinic was set for 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 7.

Attendance at the center lowers in the winter. “But we still get about 35 people every single week .... There’s still that core of people who like to come and have the meal and meet their friends,” Polewarczyk said.

The group met in numerous places starting with the town office in 1990, then moved to the community center in the late 1990s, members said. Patty Bridgham and Joan Grondin have been members from the group’s inception.

“In the beginning we were very small. it was just a handful of people,” Grondin recalled over lobster, corn on the cob and a baked potato.

Waiting in line for the meal, Bridgham said the night’s turnout was wonderful; she would like to see it every week. “This is really nice,” she said.