The Lincoln County Ecumenical Committee for Haiti has announced that the seventh annual Haiti Benefit Dinner –- Hearts and Hands for Haiti -- will take place Feb. 26, 2016 at St. Patrick’s Church in Damariscotta Mills. Snow date is March 4. The dinner and program will begin at 6 p.m.

The Damariscotta River Grill (DRG) has graciously agreed to prepare the food for a second year. As the dinner will take place during Lent, diners will have a meat and a fish option, both inspired by traditional Haitian recipes. Accompaniments of rice, beans, plantains and chocolate mousse will maintain the Haitian theme and a Haitian rum punch and fair trade Haitian mountain coffee will ensure a thoroughly authentic Haitian repast. Committee member Marie Ivry Lindsey, born and raised in Haiti, will again join award winning DRG chef/owner Rick Hirsch in the kitchen to add the personal Haitian touch.

In a new departure for the annual dinner, John Bottero of Thomaston Place Auction Galleries will be master of ceremonies. Bottero will help focus the program on some of the projects that have been funded by dinner proceeds over the past few years in the northwest Haitian town of Gros Morne, particularly primary education and literacy training and micro market loans for poor women. As the effects of the 2010 earthquake recede in the town of Gros Morne, the Committee’s efforts have turned to small-scale projects which can enhance education opportunities for young people, and help local women begin small scale businesses to help move their families out of poverty.

Vibrant Haitian art and handicrafts have always played a role in the annual Haiti Benefit dinner and this year will be no exception. Members of the Ecumenical Committee will travel to Haiti in January to procure new and exciting handicrafts and art work which will be for sale at the dinner. There will also be a raffle of a lush Haitian painting depicting Adam and Eve in a wonderfully evocative Garden of Eden.

Ecumenical Committee members are very grateful for the community’s strong and on going support for this annual effort. This is especially true of area youth who will again participate in force. Maine Music Outreach students, who will travel to Haiti in July, will again play. There will also be recorded Haitian music, and dancing will be encouraged. Service fraternities and sororities of Lincoln Academy and St. Andrew’s youth group members will again keep the evening moving smoothly.

The Lincoln County Ecumenical Committee for Haiti is composed of Lincoln County residents who are either unaffiliated or attend the following area churches: St Andrew’s, St Patrick’s, St Giles, St. Denis, First Congregational of Wiscasset and Second Congregational of Newcastle. Additional members would be welcome.

Tickets for the dinner will be available in late January at the Maine Coast Bookshop, Skidompha Library, Treat’s and the above-mentioned churches. Adults are $30 ($35 at the door) and children $15.

For further information, or to volunteer to help, please contact Barbara Williams at 563-1931.