by Ardeana Hamlin
of The Weekly Staff
OLD TOWN — When early risers go out into the cool, dark morning to partake of the 64th annual Old Town Rotary Club hunters breakfast 4-8 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, in tents at the town’s Waterfront Park, they will find a hearty meal consisting of baked beans, pancakes, eggs, ham, home fries, donuts, coffee and hot chocolate.
As it has done in years past, the breakfast will draw hunters and nonhunters alike. Last year Rotarians served breakfast to more than 600 people, said Dave Wollstadt, the club’s co-chairman of public relations. “Some are hunters and some come just to have a good breakfast,”he said. “We’ll probably get a slew of politicians, too. The breakfast is a place where they can talk to voters. It’s a true community event.”
It takes a lot of help to put that meal on the table.
“Almost everyone in the Rotary Club takes part,” said Wollstadt. “The Old Town Tim Hortons donates coffee and the owner of the franchise serves it.” And to go with the coffee, LaBree’s bakery kicks in six cases of donuts.
Club member Shawn Small and his minions make sure that 150 pounds of potatoes are cooked just right.
The 40 pounds of beans its takes to feed hundreds of breakfast eaters will be baked in five large roasting pans by members of the Alton United Methodist Church. Three of the pans will contain pea beans; the other two will hold yellow eye beans.
Finding a local farmer to supply that amount of beans is one of the tasks church members undertake, along with picking over the beans, washing them thoroughly, parboiling them and adding the seasonings, said Eloise McLaughlin, a church member. The list of seasonings in the beans remains a secret, she said.
“The beans are baked overnight at the church,” said McLaughlin. “A young couple, Mark and Brenda Wade, stay up all night to tend the beans and are there when someone [from the Rotary Club] comes to get the beans at three in the morning.”
The Rotary Club contracts with the church for the beans, an arrangement that benefits “our little country church” as well as the club, Mclaughlin said.
“This has been our signature event for 50 years,” Wollstadt said. He believes the Old Town hunters breakfast may be the longest continuously held event in the area, perhaps even in Maine.
“Attendance has been growing partly because we also raise money through the Rotary Club Hunters Breakfast 24-page tabloid newspaper, which is mailed to every address in Old Town, Milford, Bradley, Alton, Greenbush and, this year for the first time, to Orono,” Wollstadt said. The newspaper publicizes the breakfast, contains editorial content about the Rotary Club, articles about its charitable efforts, such as Sarah’s House, vintage articles about the breakfast in past years, and sells advertising in the tabloid as a fundraiser for the breakfast.
Preparation for serving the breakfast, Wollstadt said, begins the day before, but is several months in the planning to make sure that all the cogs in the effort are coordinated. Tents from General Rental go up Friday afternoon and the cooking area is set up. The the food preparation work is completed by 8 p.m.
“We’ve done some things to streamline the operation. We no longer slice the ham, for example. That comes pre-sliced from Bell’s IGA in Orono,” Wollstadt said.
To safeguard things, someone spends the night in the tent or in a trailer parked nearby.
In the morning, Rotaract Club members, students at the University of Maine, help with serving the breakfast.
The breakfast has become an institution in the town and people look forward to it each year, Wollstadt said.
The cost of the breakfast is $5, $2.50 children, $15 family.
For information, call Wollstadt at 827-1369.