Stand too close to Joy Knight before Christmas, and you might find yourself peeling potatoes.

If your name happens to be Ralph Berry, that assignment could last a decade.

His story is a common one on Christmas at the Westbrook-Warren Congregational Church, where for 10 years he has peeled, cut, boiled and mashed potatoes every Christmas, one of many volunteers who help put on a free feast every Dec. 25 for people who have nowhere else to go.

“I can’t remember who started me here,” said Berry, 82, as he stepped away from the rippled mountain of steaming starch.

Like a field general, Knight marshals a force of 70 volunteers who spend precious hours on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day serving the hearty meal of spiral cut ham, chicken breast, peas, gravy, cranberry sauce and more.

“They come, primarily, for the companionship,” said Knight, 63, of South Portland.

At long rows of folding tables, hundreds were ready at noontime for the warmth of company and the special feeling of being served by others.

Many are widows. Some live alone. Others are divorced or estranged from family, can’t easily get out, or have no one else to hold close on Christmas, Knight said.

“I don’t think people come for the free food,” she said. “They come for the community.”

And then there are the volunteers, who often don’t know one another outside of the context of the Christmas meal.

One volunteer, Chris Martin of Gorham, said he comes for a simple reason. “To give,” said Martin, 50. “I do whatever they tell me to do. This year it’s cooking. Last year it was trash. The year before it was serving a table.”

At the head of this small army is Knight, who during any other season is known around the church as the director of Christian education.

But from October to Dec. 25, she plots and plans how to make every dollar and every volunteer count toward serving the 300-some people who arrive each year.

The event started with another gesture of good will.

In 2006, a donation by another church in gratitude for use of the Westbrook church’s building gave Joy and others the idea to serve the meal.

Now it s a full-fledged gala.

On the far side of the hall, volunteers on a piano and electric bass charged through a rendition of the “Peanuts” theme. Others took turns at a microphone, belting out Christmas standards.

No one seemed more pleased about the atmosphere than Barbara Mornson.

Mornson, 67, said she came to Maine from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in 1967, and planned to stay for one summer. The move meant getting away from a tough family situation, and now nearly 50 years later, she has made it her home.

But getting around has become difficult in recent years, Mornson said, since she suffered a brain aneurysm, which has left her unsteady on her feet.

She doesn’t have a lot of family here, Mornson said, and her sister, who lives in Portland, is as hard of hearing as Mornson is, so shouting through a meal can be uncomfortable for her other relatives.

Instead, for the last four years she has come to the Westbrook church, where she feels she won’t be a bother to anyone, and gets to feel like she’s out at a restaurant, which is a tough proposition any other day.

So when a volunteer leaned in close and rattled off the plethora of pies for dessert, before returning with a generous slice of apple pie, Mornson’s eyes grew like saucers.

It was as if she had received her own Christmas miracle.

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