NORTH SACO — At 6 a.m. Saturday, it was still dark but the parking lot of North Saco Congregational Christian Church was full of cars and pickup trucks. Light gleamed from the church’s basement windows, and there was the scent — yes — of bacon in the air.

Bacon, you say? Well of course. Saturday marked the second and last Hunter’s Breakfast of the year, put on by a 16-member volunteer group from the church.

And in traditional Maine fashion, as well as hot coffee, eggs, pancakes, toast and that great-smelling bacon, there were home-baked beans — two kinds, kidney and pea — and a staggering array of home made pies.

It was all enough to give hunters and non-hunters alike a good,, hearty start to the morning

In North Saco, it is a 40-year tradition.

“I got up at 4:30  a.m., had coffee and came here,” said Jim White, who was having breakfast with fellow hunter Chance Gardner. “This is part of the routine.”

The two  were headed out hunting later — we knew enough not to ask where — looking for a buck to put in the freezer.

White said he looks at it this way: If he shoots a doe, he’s killing three deer — the doe and two potential fawns. “So I hunt bucks only, and 95 percent of the time I get one,” he said. 

Both men enjoy hunting and being in the woods.

“I like the peace and quiet,” said Gardner. He hunts bucks-only too, and has been engaging in the sport since he was 18.

Over at a couple of other tables, the extended Leary family tucked into breakfast; the annual event is a tradition for their family too. Jim Leary, the patriarch, looked around and counted four generations, with Ethan Leary, whose father Kevin said is almost 2-years-old, as the youngest Leary contemplating his pancakes and beans.

A table away, Donald and Jeannine Jarry were enjoying breakfast with their daughter, Julie Desaulniers, and her husband, Danny. The breakfast is a tradition for the Jarry’s, and now it is becoming one for the Desaulniers too. The younger couple were planning to hunt Saturday afternoon. “I like getting out there, I love the wilderness,” said Danny. 

“Hopefully, we’ll fill the freezer,” said Julie.

Out in the kitchen, Joyce Poulin and Ellie Carpenter said they were wondering how to raise some cash for the church 40 years ago when they decided on a Hunter’s Breakfast. 

Poulin, the organizer, said the first breakfast of  the season, held the last Saturday in October, sees the most hunters, but the second Saturday is popular, too. 

Many of the volunteers  have been at their task for years, like Joanne Allen, who has been cooking eggs on a grill for the last decade.

“I had to work up to eggs,” she smiled. 

How can folks get their eggs?

“Over hard or over easy,” she said. ‘No scrambled.”

The Rev. Gerald Scribner said some of  the volunteers arrive at 3 a.m. to get ready for the 4:30 a.m. opening.

The money raised at the two hunters breakfasts and bean suppers help with a variety of church expenses, said Scribner, the part-time minister.

A couple of years ago, the congregation decided to move the breakfast and suppers next door, in the church hall from the church basement. They were serving up a bean supper one fine June night in 2015 when they heard creaking and a noise like fireworks, Scribner recalled. A look shows cracks in the floor joists,  and so the supper was moved outside that night.

When an engineer later took a look, it was discovered there was moisture in the cellar because no vapor barrier had been installed when the hall was renovated, so the joists cracked and split, said Scribner. There were exclusions in the church’s insurance and they’re in talks with another insurance company and so the outcome is unknown, but what they do know is it will cost upwards of $40,000 to make repairs.

So for now, the breakfasts and the suppers are back in the church basement — where they began and eventually, they hope to return to the church hall.

Scribner said the congregation is small, with attendance averaging 30 to 40 most Sundays. But the church was to welcome 11 new members Sunday morning, so there is hope for growth.

Meanwhile, the hunters were departing and Scribner said there would be a bit of a lull until 7:30 a.m., when the neighborhood folks started coming in, ready for breakfast.

“Its good people, good food and we work together with a good spirit,” he said.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.