Just after 3 p.m. last Thursday, Jess Hyman called together her team of cooks at the Old North End Community Center and handed out marching orders for that evening's food service.

The all-volunteer crew, none of them trained chefs, had signed up to make dinner for dozens of their neighbors in Burlington's Old North End. Their to-do list was long: make 200 vegetable spring rolls, a vat of sticky rice and chickpeas, and a salad with cucumbers and mint, all in about two hours. Mercifully, other folks were handling dessert.

Hyman quickly set her charges to work.

"We want to be ready to be rolling those spring rolls in 20 minutes, so get those veggies prepped," she said, then raced to set up the food processor.

The organized chaos is routine for the ONE Community Dinner, a free meal that's planned, cooked and served by a rotating cast of volunteers every month on the evening of the Wards 2 & 3 Neighborhood Planning Assembly meeting. The 30-year tradition is the envy of other NPAs, some of which only recently started serving food in the hope that residents, lured by the promise of pizza, will linger for the neighborhood discussions to follow.

The formula has worked well in the Old North End, where the dinner has been known to draw more than 150 people. But the pandemic paused the gatherings, and attendance has dropped off since. Then in March, the dinner's beloved coordinator, Janet Carscadden, died from brain cancer. Those taking her place are determined to carry on her legacy.

Hyman, the new coordinator, knew last week's menu was ambitious. Her Vietnamese-inspired spring rolls, for instance, called for nearly 20 ingredients between the fillings and dipping sauces. To save time on this day, Hyman had prepared a colorful mise en place of carrots, radishes and violets, the latter plucked from her Intervale garden plot, the previous night. She'd left early from her day job as associate director of statewide housing advocacy programs at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity to organize the volunteers' workstations.

Kristine Harbour had already put in a long day at her restaurant, Nunyuns Bakery & Café, but she had signed up for a dinner shift after Hyman posted a call for help on the neighborhood Facebook page. It was her first time volunteering there.

"I don't want to get into doing dishes because I do enough of that at work," she said with a laugh, while tearing stems off bunches of cilantro. "But I actually enjoy doing food stuff."

The small space was abuzz. Exhaust fans whirred and sprays of hot water hit stainless steel pans. The industrial-grade food processor, rescued from a dumpster, rumbled to life and spit out neat slices of cucumber.

Most of the produce, donated by the Intervale Community Farm and Diggers' Mirth Collective Farm, was grown within a mile of the kitchen. The cost is covered by donations from diners, gift cards from City Market, Onion River Co-op and a portion of the NPA budget. The volunteers shared a tight space. Mulu Tewelde, who prepares Eritrean and Ethiopian takeout meals at the center under the banner Mulu's Kitchen and Catering, staked out a corner of the stockroom to peel red potatoes. KeruBo came downstairs from AALV, a nonprofit that helps African people settle in Vermont, to make chai for a women's group that she leads, tiptoeing around the cooks to carry a large pot of water to the stove.

Nearby, dinner volunteer Anne Crowley cut kale into ribbons as she reminisced about Carscadden, who acted as chef-in-chief for eight years. A "benevolent general" who commanded the kitchen with both humor and grace, Carscadden "was unbelievable," Crowley said. "It was a work of art to watch her. I've never been able to have that many plates spinning."

Even though the community dinner had been served for nearly 25 years before Carscadden took over, most people today credit her with its success. A physical therapist by day, Carscadden poured creativity into what she and her partner, Patrick Johnson, called "stealth vegan" dinners: meals so substantial that no one missed the meat or dairy. Carscadden's obituary noted her approach to the work. "Strengthening the community bonds through good food was truly her gift to us," it reads.

Carscadden's cooking provided the fuel for debates on important city issues over the years — conversations that Johnson facilitated as a member of the NPA steering committee. As one of the lower-income and more diverse areas in Burlington, the Old North End is a hotbed of activism and Progressive politics. A shared meal helps keep the discourse collegial, Johnson said before last week's dinner.

"The quality of conversations always went up," he said. "The meetings became less of a diatribe ... and more of an interaction."

Johnson has stepped back from running the show since his partner's death, and last week, Hyman wasn't sure if he'd come at all. Carscadden's memorial service was planned for that weekend, and relatives from her native Toronto were due to arrive in town. But then Hyman saw Johnson's name on the volunteer list. He was on his way but running late.

With 40 minutes to go, Harbour, Crowley and another volunteer, Ella Xu, assembled the rolls as quickly as the finicky rice paper allowed. Handled clumsily, the wrappers would stick together like Saran Wrap. Piled too high with fillings, the rolls would split open like overstuffed burritos.

"You need a little bit more water," Harbour suggested, when Crowley's wrappers kept sticking to the table.

"Ohh!" Crowley said and thanked her for the tip.

Johnson and Janet Hicks, one of the dinner's founders, walked in shortly after. Hyman was initially relieved that reinforcements had arrived, but then she heard the longtime friends quibbling over seasoning for the sticky rice.

"The big debate is whether the flavors of the chickpeas [will go with the rice]," Hyman said, as she whipped up a batch of peanut sauce. "My concern is whether the rice is going to be cooked!"

The banter continued as Hicks playfully snatched a jar of chile oil from Johnson when he couldn't unscrew the lid. But the jar slipped from her hands and shattered, scattering glass shards and bright red sauce all over the floor. Any tension in the room broke, too, as they cleaned up the mess.

"What you're seeing kept the community dinner going," Hicks said, turning to a Seven Days reporter. "Flexibility and persistence."

Added Crowley: "We've been flying by the seat of our pants for all of these years."

Somehow, the meal was prepared by 5:30 p.m.; a line had already formed. A new group of volunteers served 85 eager diners, who marveled at the intricate rolls and array of condiments and slipped donations into a tin box. They sat at the long tables set up for the meeting, or at the kids' activity table in the back. A group of Progressive lawmakers clustered together, but others mixed it up and met neighbors they didn't know.

One woman was telling her dining companions about her new food truck and her husband's enviable job as a flavor developer for Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The group's conversation flowed smoothly between bites of food. One diner paused to proclaim: "This is so good."

As the meeting got under way, the clean-up shift was just beginning. The muted clanging of dishes sounded through the closed kitchen door.