Lisa Caskin has a big heart. For people and animals. Her heart and energy have made the Key Peninsula a better place for both.
For four years, she has prepared and delivered holiday meals to people who might otherwise face a day alone. Her local reputation as a go-to resource for rescue animals goes back at least eight years when she, her son, and his girlfriend rescued a stray chicken after a wild dive into the bushes (“Family Rescues Orphan Annie on SR 302,” May 2018, p. 19).
“I was always in a nurturing role,” Caskin said. “If it wasn’t humans, it was animals. My parents never knew what I’d bring home.”
One of the animals she brought home was a young skunk. “When you grab them by the tail and get their feet off the ground, they can’t spray,” Caskin said. “My mom had a point when I showed her. I hadn’t thought about letting it go. So, I opened the sliding door, tossed it out, and closed the door.”
Caskin was born and raised on the Key Peninsula. Her parents owned the second house built at Palmer Lake. It’s where she raised her sons, and her three grandchildren live not far away. After graduating from Peninsula High School in 1991, Caskin attended college, then worked in landscaping, for the Red Cross, and for Sprint.
She left work to care for her mother for three years, including her final month at home.
“I was going to look for a regular job, but my Dad’s health wasn’t the best,” Caskin said. She answered a posting for a caregiving job for a client and spent the next eight years working largely for her until she died in December. Losing her was painful. “She was like family.”
Caskin’s father died in the spring of 2020 and knowing how lonely the holidays could be without him inspired an earlier dream to bring meals to people who were alone for the holidays.
“We had a big family,” Caskin said. “I never learned how to cook a small Thanksgiving meal. One year when my mom was still alive we had so many leftovers, and I thought, ‘There are so many people out here that are all alone. Why don’t I just do it and take food to everybody?’”
In November of 2020, she reached out to friends, acquaintances and neighbors and delivered Thanksgiving dinners to them. For Christmas that year she posted on Facebook, expanding her dinner delivery to others. She recently added the Fourth of July and now delivers meals to between 29 and 37 people, depending on the holiday.
Thanksgiving and Christmas include turkey with stuffing or ham, a vegetable, salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams and pie. She tries to include enough to provide leftovers. She adds a small gift at Christmas. For the Fourth, it’s hamburgers or hotdogs and potato salad.
Caskin covered the costs herself at first, shopping in advance and collecting food containers throughout the year, but recently people have helped with money, food and containers.
She starts cooking the day before with the goal of having everything prepared by early afternoon on each holiday. “My kitchen looks like a disaster for two days after,” Caskin said. This year others helped with food preparation. “I couldn’t believe how much earlier in the day it was all done,” she said.
Caskin and her family handle deliveries. They load up the car with separate bags for each individual, with one driving while the other “drops and runs.” Some of the households are close to each other, but it can take six or more hours to complete the deliveries.
Next year she may try to deliver some meals the day before the holiday so that she has some time to enjoy time with her grandchildren.
“Amazing” is the word her friends Pamela Cumbie and Angela Peterson use to describe her.
“She is an angel,” Peterson said. “Since I have known her she’s been out to help anyone who needs help. She does anything for anybody no matter what their circumstance. She puts other people’s needs before her own.”
“For animal rescue, she takes the worst of the worst and rehabs them and in most cases keeps them and cares for them herself,” Cumbie said. “She is dedicated.”
Although the numbers and kinds of animals can fluctuate, in January Caskin’s menagerie included four pigs (described as two freeloaders and a breeding pair), two horses, five goats tasked with clearing brush and keeping company with a deaf and blind potbellied pig, three dogs, one Maine coon cat and several feral kittens dropped off by an unknown individual, a turtle, a goldfish and 110 chickens. A one-legged chicken uses a wheelchair designed and built by Caskin.
“I love my chickens,” Caskin said. “They can be warm and cuddly. Two would sit in my lap if they had their way. Even my rooster would rather be carried around.”
“She is a very caring person,” Cumbie said. “She feels very deeply for family, friends and animals. If there is something going on she is helping.”
