The all-volunteer Mobile Turkey Unit is once again accepting requests for free, home-delivered Thanksgiving dinners to people on south and central Whidbey.

People can request a meal for themselves or neighbors in need by calling 360-341-1220 and leaving a message on an answering machine managed by Art and Dorothy Taylor of Clinton, who coordinate meal requests and driver delivery schedules.

Meal request forms are also available at Good Cheer Food Bank and on the event’s website at www.mobileturkeyunit.wordpress.com.

The holiday outreach was founded by the late Tom Arhontas in 1999, and has been continued by a volunteer organizing committee in the four years since his death.

Last year more than 100 volunteers turned out to produce, package and deliver 275 meals to Whidbey families in need, including elderly people unable to cook a large meal or who were alone on Thanksgiving, ill and disabled people, low-income families, and people working on Thanksgiving Day. The dinners include sliced turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green beans, yams, cranberry sauce, a roll with butter and pumpkin pie.

Baked apple and pumpkin pies can be dropped off the day before Thanksgiving to the Eagles Aerie restaurant on Highway 525.

Monetary donations can be made at any Wells Fargo Bank branch on the South End in care of the Mobile Turkey Unit, and by mail to the Mobile Turkey Unit, c/o Eagles Aerie No. 3418, PO Box 925, Freeland, WA 98249.