The Central Maine Family Christmas Dinner Celebrates 10 Years

Central Maine Family Christmas Dinner founder Ziggy Lawrence says it can be stressful planning a dinner for nearly 1,000 people, but it is worth it when you see the look on people's faces.

According to the KJ, the 10th annual dinner will run from 11 AM to 2 PM tomorrow (Christmas Day) at the Waterville Elks Banquet and Conference Center on Industrial Road in Waterville.

In addition to dinner, there'll be wagon rides, live music, there'll be stockings filled with toys for the Salvation Army children, and Santa will visit at noon,

Rides will be available to and from the event.  For more information, call 207.877.5775

According to Lawrence, the dinner started with he and his wife not being able to find a place to volunteer in the Waterville area.  That year, they volunteered with an organization in Bangor.  At the end of that event, one of the other volunteers challenged them to start their own event in Waterville.  The rest is history...

According to Ziggy, the idea behind the event is that no one should spend Christmas alone.