Mystic ― Trad Dart had been roasting turkeys for the past two days as of Monday afternoon in anticipation of the annual Christmas dinner at Union Baptist Church on 119 High St.

“I take the bones from them, cut them and make a stock,” said the chef of 42 years and church member.

The annual event has been going on for more than 20 years. Dart, along with Dawn Scanlon, have been organizing the dinner for nine years.

The group of about a dozen volunteers, mostly church members, were getting ready to serve 150 free meals for the holiday.

“I feel there’s a need in the community,” said Scanlon, also a fellow member of the church. ”It gives people a place to go if they have no other place to go."

For Monday’s meal service, Dart had turned half the turkey stock into a broth he used to add moisture to the birds as they cooked, and the other half into turkey gravy, which he stirred with a giant whisk as he chatted about baseball in the church’s kitchen.

“Twenty years ago, I started (visiting) all the ballparks. I’m down to about eight,” he said.

Dart then loaded everything into foil pans and brought them to the serving crew. Volunteers laughed and joked with each other as they took the pans, and got them ready for their hungry guests.

“Pretty much we’re all family,” said Nancy Crossley, a volunteer serving dinner. “And a lot of us have been doing it for years.”

Dart briefed Crossley and the rest of the assembly line on how much food to portion on each plate: carrots, creamed cauliflower, mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey with a drizzle of the gravy, dinner roll with butter and cranberry sauce.

He then shouted, “Okay!” signaling that service was ready to begin. Volunteers then began bringing plates of food to the seated diners down the steps from the kitchen.

Out in the dining room, guests said they were happy to receive a free meal that they did not have to prepare for themselves.

“I just got out of the hospital and I didn’t want to cook,” said Suzanne Hazel of Griswold, who’s been coming to the dinner for about 10 years. “They’re always good here.”

Paul and Kathleen Umland, of Mystic, said they come to the dinner every year.

“I’m not going to spend hours cooking, I do enough of that,” Kathleen said. “They do a great job.”

Ray Cruz, of Mystic, was attending the dinner for the third time with his wife Lori. Cruz said he enjoys the atmosphere of the annual dinner, which invites all backgrounds.

“There’s not much pessimism here, there’s not much negativity,” said Cruz. “There’s respect. There’s safety here.”

Back in the kitchen, Sue Morton was helping place 70 takeout trays of food into paper bags.

“Once the meals start going out, we start doing the takeout ones,” she said, adding that the church had tried using plastic bags to deliver the food, but switched after seagulls had pecked through the thin plastic.

Once the bags were packed with trays, Morton brought them to a car, where one of four delivery drivers brought the food to residents of Mystic, Groton or Pawcatuck, who either didn’t want to leave the house, or were unable to, Morton said.

“We’re doing something good and we have a lot of fun, as you can tell by our laughter,” Crossley said about the event.

d.drainville@theday.com