Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, all are the essential ingredients for a Thanksgiving dinner.  But for many in Wareham this holiday season, these foods would not be possible without another crucial ingredient: the Community Resource Network.

This local volunteer organization will deliver 225 Thanksgiving dinners on Tuesday, ensuring that those experiencing difficult economic times still have something to be thankful for on Thursday.

"We decided that it was the appropriate time to do it: the start of the holiday season," said the resource network's project supervisor Hannah Milhench.

It is the group's 18th year preparing the Thanksgiving baskets.

"In 1992, we started with 25 or 26 baskets, and we thought 'wow,'" said volunteer Alice Franklin.  Each year it got bigger: "our goal is to reach 300," Franklin said.

The organization begins taking requests for baskets at the beginning of November.  Orders come in four sizes, each with enough Thanksgiving fixings to provide a holiday meal for one person or for families with over seven members, as well as some extra canned goods or snacks.

Stop & Shop and the Sippican Corporation donate money to purchase turkeys, and the Tom Lange Company in Rochester provides the birds.

Jonathan Sprouts Incorporated donates organic potatoes and carrots, Ocean Spray provides the cranberry sauce, the volunteers and local churches donate stuffing and canned goods, as well as cash to purchase miscellaneous goods.  A gardener from Marion donated buttercup and acorn squashes.  Even the boxes are donated by Walecka Movers.

And just as relatives crowd your kitchen on Thursday, it takes an army to assemble the Thanksgiving baskets.

First, Girl Scout Juniors from Troop 80155, and Boy and Tiger Scouts from Troop 93 added colorful hand-traced turkeys and well-wishes to decorate the boxes.  Meanwhile, volunteers shuttle the vegetables, canned goods and other foodstuffs into the First Congregational Church hall, and sort it into shopping cards.

After the children head home, the boxes are lined up on long tables, and volunteers fill each with the appropriate amount of food for the families' needs.

"The more you do it, the easier it gets," said Milhench, who has coordinated the event for the last three years.

On Tuesday morning, the boxes are picked up, along with a 12 to 16-pound turkeys.  That's the hardest part, said Milhench, as the turkeys are frozen and come in boxes of four.  So, high-school students volunteer to help do the carrying.

By about 1 p.m. on Tuesday, volunteers said all the baskets have been distributed.  And volunteers have their own Thanksgiving dinners to prepare.

"Of course I have to cook Thanksgiving dinner too," said Milhench.  "I always do the turkey and gravy."