Why This Homey Meal Is a Yearly Lifeline for Community Connection
YWCA of MDI Cooks Community Thanksgiving Dinner
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Acadia Shops.
BAR HARBOR—No one is quite sure how long the YWCA of MDI has been cooking a community Thanksgiving dinner.
“It’s been years,” Jackie Davidson, executive director said in 2024 as the smells of turkey and gravy wafted through the entire brick building and out onto Mount Desert Street. “This dinner has been going on for many years, and it was very established by the time I got here.”
This year it happened again.
Volunteers and staffed cooked. Davidson read a blessing from a rabbi that had been passed out on little orange cards. Turkey was had. Songs were sung. Conversation was made. Togetherness happened.
The dinner has been going on at least as long as Abby Robinson has been at the YWCA, and that, she said, has been 23 years.
Robinson believes it began under the direction of Benni McMullen, who had been the director of the local YWCA for 39 years, making hundreds of friends and saving countless people through her work, her kindness, and her focus on ways to build and care for community. One of those ways was a Thanksgiving dinner.
And, for every year that she’s worked at the YWCA, Robinson has been cooking turkey and mashed potato and sweet potato and other sides. Cooking for more than 30 people might intimidate some, but for Robinson, it’s part of the holidays. Growing up, her family gatherings would sometimes host 60. They’d all eat in the same space. Sometimes that space was a garage for the larger gatherings, but what mattered was that they all ate together.
That’s what mattered in the YWCA auditorium on Tuesday night, too, as approximately three dozen people gathered along long tables in the room’s center. Some years there have been as many as fifty attendees.
“I would say the importance it has on the community is that people know the YWCA and we have always had a reputation for serving good food!” Davidson said back in 2024. “A lot of the attendees are folks from Malvern Belmont and some come from Rodick Lorraine as well.”
It’s about socializing, she thinks, about coming together in one place, under one roof, sharing stories, and breaking bread. It’s also about taking care of each other.
That act of care has been happening throughout the island. Last week the Pemetic PTO put on its annual Thanksgiving Buddy Dinner. Tremont schools are hosting spaghetti suppers and fundraisers. Mount Desert Elementary is selling wreaths. There have been events to help those suffering from the impact of Hurricane Melissa and other events and giving to help local food pantries and backpack programs.
Photos courtesy of Brandon Monroe. The Stay Bar Harbor hotel group sent 12 barrels of supplies and 3 boxes to Jamaica after a supply drive and fundraiser.
Across the street and earlier this week, the Bar Harbor Congregational Church hosted its annual Basket-pa-looza, creating baskets for more than 220 families, up from 189 last year. This week Bar Harbor Bank & Trust has pledged $5,000 to help improve food security for residents of Hancock County. The Bank will match, dollar for dollar, up to $1,000 of donations made to each of the following food pantries during December 1-12, including the Bar Harbor Food Pantry (Bar Harbor) and Common Good Soup Kitchen (Southwest Harbor).
When people share food, they share trust. It becomes an act of caring and it can increase both cooperation and goodwill. A Pew Research Center study from 2019 explained that approximately 80% of respondents didn’t think Americans trusted their neighbors. Approximately 60% thought restoring that trust was important.
A shared meal helps to build that trust.
And a shared meal, year after year, at a place like the YWCA is also a moment where things slow down.
In 2017, researchers at the University of Oxford explored how social eating and happiness might be correlated as well as how that connects to a person’s number of friends, satisfaction with life, and community connection.
“The results suggest that communal eating increases social bonding and feelings of well-being, and enhances one’s sense of contentedness and embedding within the community,” the University of Oxford site wrote in a release.
Just like last year, and so many years before, Robinson watched people serve themselves at the buffet before taking their seats. Diners applauded April Cough McGuire who serenely serenaded those gathered with her voice and keyboard.
It happened as Davidson said, “I thought it would be nice if we all read this blessing together.”
It took a bit to still the chatter, the stories, the communication, but eventually the blessing was read.
The blessing didn’t extol any religion; it spoke of community and gratitude, of hunger and full bellies. It spoke of care.
“Up until a few years ago we always held this event on Tuesday before Thanksgiving,” Davidson said. “Traditionally, we have had a Thanksgiving Pie sale that same day, so if a pie didn’t sell at the sale, we knew it would be welcome at the dinner afterwards. When Open Table began their dinners, they held them on Tuesdays, so we felt it wasn’t fair to compete with them, so we moved to Monday.”
That choice? Just another kindness. Just another way to build community. This year, though, Open Table is on a hiatus until January, and the Y’s dinner? It was on a Tuesday.
All photos unless specified: Shaun Farrar and Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story. Some elements of this story appeared last year.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE YWCA OF MDI
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BAR HARBOR CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH