MILLINOCKET – Thanksgiving Day has always been a good and filling time for Ron and Nina Goodwin. Like most anybody else, the elderly couple eats big – a turkey with all the trimmings if they expect company or a chicken if they dine by themselves.

Then Nina Goodwin’s back went bad on her in June, requiring almost constant attention from her husband. Though never a cook of prodigious fare, Ron Goodwin found himself facing this Thanksgiving in the unenviable position of needing to leave his wife’s side to go out and buy a really big meal or whipping one up himself.

Enter Alan Pangburn.

The owner of Pangburn’s Family IGA store on Central Street and about 15 of his employees, all volunteers, have helped make and deliver meals every Thanksgiving for about 10 years to people like the Goodwins – folks unable to make or afford a meal due to illness, age or poverty.

Thanks to Pangburn’s efforts, the Goodwins will get a free Thanksgiving Day meal of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed vegetables, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce and dessert delivered to their Minuteman Drive home between 11 a.m. and noon today.

“This is the first time this has happened to me, so I am very grateful,” Ron Goodwin said Wednesday. “I couldn’t go out tomorrow, so this is a bonus.”

Pangburn “has done these things every year since he has been in business here. He’s got to be the most popular man in town,” added Goodwin, a retired Great Northern Paper Co. machine worker. “He is noted for his charitable things, and we all enjoy having him here.”

Pangburn is glad to help. Forty to 50 meals will be delivered from the IGA to town residents, he said.

The delivery effort used to be accompanied by a dinner at St. Martin of Tours Church, but that was discontinued this year because too many attendees were coming from outside the area and may not have been needy, Pangburn said.

“The original goal was to make sure that nobody was alone or went without a meal at Thanksgiving,” he said. “In no way did we want to compete with restaurants. It [the church dinner] was getting away from that.”

The selection process used by IGA workers to decide who gets a meal is more intuitive than scientific, Pangburn said. The workers simply notice people who look like they might need a meal on Thanksgiving and ask them. Sisters Lea Ann and Penny Jandreau are a big part of that.

“If they don’t know you,” Pangborn said wryly, “you probably aren’t worth knowing.”

Workers at the Katahdin Area Support Group, a volunteer organization that helps people with serious illnesses, particularly those critically in need of treatment or other types of assistance, also supply a list, he said.

Everyone gets a telephone call beforehand to make sure they know to expect a meal, Lea Ann Jandreau said.

“It’s one of the ways I can give back to the community for what the community has given me. It gives me a good warm feeling to do it,” Pangburn said. “We are a totally hometown-proud organization here.”