Two Winthrop Hot Meal Kitchen volunteers dropping off dinner to a Winthrop man Wednesday ended up providing more than a free meal. They might have saved his life.

Nelson and Sherry Lavigne said they were making a delivery around 5 p.m. to a home on Route 41 when they found Gordon Alcott, 99, lying down on his back porch, bleeding from the head. Nelson Lavigne, 52, helped Alcott stand up and Sherry Lavigne, 60, called the police.

“Around the eye was bleeding like a son of a gun, it was,” Nelson Lavigne said.

Alcott, who had a large cut over his left eye, told police he had been lying outside for three hours, Winthrop Police Chief Joe Young said.

Alcott didn’t respond to a request for comment. He was back in his house Thursday after being taken to MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta Wednesday night.

“If nobody was there, he would have frozen right there,” Nelson Lavigne said.

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Temperatures were in the 20s Wednesday evening, according to the National Weather Service.

The Lavignes, of Winthrop, were still recovering from a fire last month sparked by their wood stove, which burned down their Maranacook Road home, destroying their belongings and killing their cats.

Sherry Lavigne, who has volunteered for the Winthrop Hot Meal Kitchen for the last three years, said they now live in an apartment paid for by insurance and hope to get a new house this spring.

“Things happen. I don’t ever want to see another wood stove, I’ll tell you,” she said.

Volunteers at the Winthrop Hot Meal Kitchen cook up enough food for around 80 people every Monday through Thursday at the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Rectory Parish Hall.

Often around 65 to 70 people come for the 11:30 a.m. to noon lunch, but Steve Dodge, president of the board of directors and one of the cooks, said he never knows how many people will come through the church doors. If fewer people show up for lunch, volunteers will pack up more for deliveries later in the day, he said.

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Dodge said he usually drops meals off to homes, a church and the Winthrop Motel on his way home to Wayne.

“I figure if you live in a motel and you need a meal, you could probably use two meals,” Dodge said.

The soup kitchen received a boost of volunteers after a Kennebec Journal story about the organization published last month, but more volunteers are needed to deliver meals, he said.

Dodge said most of the people whose meals are delivered live in Winthrop, so it would be helpful if new volunteers from neighboring towns could drop off meals to people in their own area.

“There is a need out there,” he said.

Thanks to the additional volunteers, the organization will likely be able to start serving lunch on Fridays again shortly, but Dodge said those who deliver meals are an important part of the operation, too.

“Obviously, if we weren’t delivering meals, that man wouldn’t still be alive,” Dodge said.


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