Dec. 25—WESTBROOK — Without the annual Christmas dinner at Westbrook-Warren Congregational Church, Ellen Burrill would be serving 20 siblings, nieces, nephews and others.
“It’s a nice place to come if you don’t want to cook,” she said.
Burrill, decked out in a festive red sweater with a wreath-shaped brooch, joined her sister, Cathy Giobbi, 76, who was attending the dinner for the first time.
The two women told their potential guests, who come from Maine, Arkansas, Florida, Maryland and elsewhere, that Christmas dinner would be different this year. “It’s a lot of work,” said Burrill, who is 81. And, she added, “they all love food.”
“I suggested we come here,” Giobbi said. “She stopped cooking and I got a delicious meal.”
Joy Knight, coordinator of the dinner that started 18 years ago, said 300 donated and cooked meals were expected to be served, along with 50 takeaway meals.
“People just need an extra meal or they can’t cook,” she said. “I never liked Christmas until I started working here. I often went to a Chinese restaurant and to the movies.”
The meals consisted of ham, carrots, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, peas and about three dozen apple pies and chocolate cakes, made on the morning of Christmas Eve.
Inflation has pushed up the cost of the dinner, which is funded by donations, by 20% to 25% this year, Knight said. And if it’s not the higher prices, it’s the smaller packages without lower prices that are increasing cost pressures, she said.
Anita Johnson and her son, Charles Sheldon, said they discovered the diner while searching online for a free meal. They said they will be evicted from their home on Tuesday and have nowhere to go.
However, it’s not just the needy who come to the Main Street church, with its large fellowship hall decorated with several Christmas trees. Julie Benavides of Yarmouth Congregational Church said she has seen visitors put $20 bills into the donation jar at the entrance to the hall. “That’s not a poor person,” she said.
“A lot of people are here because they don’t have anyone else around,” Benavides said.
As many as 50 volunteers organize the annual dinner, about half of whom are church members who buy and cook food and the other half are non-members, she said. Volunteers work as table and buffet servers, cooks, dishwashers and musicians.
The dinner will be announced in communications to residential centers, social services and other agencies.
Ralph Berry, a 90-year-old retired industrial arts teacher, was spooning mashed potatoes. “I don’t cook them, I just peel them,” he said.
When asked how long he has been volunteering, Berry replied, “Too long.”
Benavides has a different opinion. “I get more joy out of this than people eating,” she said.
Copy the story link
