Pulling the rope to ring the bell at First Congregational Church of Wiscasset is an effort, Brad Adler said. But the Wiscasset man, who has been a member with wife Emily over a decade and whose parents Donald and Florence Adler also belonged, has felt good about his and other volunteers’ ringing the century-old bell in the pandemic. They and, on the other side of Route 1, volunteers at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, started in March, when people in town began ringing bells daily at noon for hope and unity.

Nearly six months in, the neighbors who formed Federal Street Ding-a-lings plan to keep it up, Terry Heller said. They will keep meeting near the Ancient Cemetery every day at noon to ring the bells they bring, she said. The two churches’ noon bell-ringing concluded Sunday in a socially distanced picnic on Wiscasset Common. Motorists pressed on their horns and participants cheered and stood ringing bells or, like Tom and Cindy Clement, rang them from the comfort of their picnic blankets.

The Clements have been living near Fredericktown, Maryland and are building a house at Clark’s Point, Wiscasset. They said they heard about the picnic and thought it would be a chance to get to know people, and take part in a community event Tom said was being held in “a very socially conscious manner.”

And upstairs in First Congregational, Brad Adler rang the church bell. The Adlers estimated it was his fourth or fifth turn over the months, each time with Emily at his side, for moral support, she said.

“(Wiscasset’s bell-ringing) has really helped give everyone a sense of hope, and love,” she said.

Sharman Ballantine has been one of the rotating bell-ringers at St. Philip’s. “I was Wednesday,” she said in a phone interview Sunday night. “It has been uplifting.”

First Congregational’s pastor, Josh Fitterling, noted both churches have resumed in-person worship, so are ringing their bells at Sunday service. Marking the end of the two churches’ participation in the daily bell-ringing with a picnic, with masks and with blankets spaced apart, was fitting, as people learn how to be together again, without being close together, he said.

Onstage at the bottom of the hill, Heller had her back to Route 1 and, to her left, Dresden’s Mike Everett pausing from playing a carillon. Heller thanked the churches’ bell-ringers. Then she and the gathering of about two dozen people applauded them.