INTRODUCTION

Barbecue is about family, friends and good food. But for a small percentage of people, barbecue is also about competing and seeing who has the best food any given weekend. The one thing we all have in common are the good memories shared around barbecue.

On May 23, 2011, these two groups of BBQ lovers came together after the devastating EF5-rated tornado hit Joplin, Missouri. Competition BBQ teams and BBQ enthusiasts from nine states came together to help the community. In the parking lot at the corner of 7th Street and Rangeline Road, Operation BBQ Relief was founded. The BBQ family was doing what they knew to do, and that was cooking hot barbecue comfort food to help those affected and the first responders. In eleven days, a couple hundred volunteers helped serve approximately 120,000 hot meals. Before we left that parking lot we knew that we were going to make Operation BBQ Relief a nonprofit organization. On February 9, 2012, the IRS granted Operation BBQ Relief its 501(c)(3) public charity.

The BBQ community giving back is nothing new, though. They’ve been giving back for years—to their communities, churches, kids’ schools, sports teams and the list goes on and on. What Operation BBQ Relief did was bring the passion of the BBQ family together to do good on a larger scale.

OBR has had several major milestones since that first experience in Joplin and as many or more struggles. Below are several significant milestones:

November 2012: Hurricane Superstorm Sandy caused major damage in New Jersey and New York. This was the first deployment where we had five separate locations serving over 100,000 BBQ meals in twelve days. The gridlock around the areas created logistical challenges for BBQ teams.

May 2013: Almost two years after the Joplin tornado, Moore, Oklahoma, was hit by a massive EF5-rated tornado. Our teams responded within hours from surrounding states and served over 143,000 hot BBQ meals in twelve days.

August 27, 2016: On this day we served our one-millionth hot BBQ meal in the Hammond/Baton Rouge area. In that area alone we served 313,874 hot BBQ meals. When we left the parking lot in Joplin, we never thought about the day we would serve our millionth meal. Now we are looking toward our two-millionth meal.

2017: This year proved to be the busiest year yet with the largest hurricanes since Katrina and Rita. Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast on August 25, 2017, causing a record amount of damage and affecting a record number of people. OBR responded and served hot meals for eleven days in downtown Houston, as well as Victoria, Texas. Over those eleven days, we served 371,760 hot BBQ meals to more than 215 different churches, civic groups, nongovernmental and governmental organizations. We served an OBR record of 55,575 meals on September 6, 2017. During our response, CNN, Fox News, the Weather Channel and other media outlets filmed the work our group was doing to help the Texas community. After eleven days of meal service, we broke camp and started to move our equipment from Texas to Florida.

On September 10, 2017, Hurricane Irma hit the Florida coast. Our teams were en route to set up and help serve those communities affected by the hurricane. We ended up setting up outside Fort Myers, Florida. In the nine days following the hurricane, we served 126,400 hot BBQ meals. We worked with different groups like FedEx to get hot meals airlifted to the Florida Keys and a network of volunteers helped serve the communities from southern Florida up to the Orlando area.

We ended 2017 serving 569,450 meals in six states from eight disasters. OBR has now deployed to 51 different disasters in 25 states and served over 1.78 million hot BBQ meals. The majority of those meals were prepared by Grand Champion and World Champion pitmasters. We received additional recognition for our work from the City of Houston, and co-founder and CEO Stan Hays was recognized as one of the Top 10 CNN Heroes for 2017.

The recipes in our book are what these Grand Champion and World Champion pitmasters like to cook for their friends and family in their backyards, and we know you will enjoy them as well. Please share your experiences and pictures with us as you BBQ for your friends and family. We at Operation BBQ Relief are blessed to have such an amazing BBQ family and by buying our book and supporting us, we want to welcome you as the newest member of our BBQ family!

For more information about volunteering or donating to Operation BBQ Relief, go to our website at http://OperationBBQRelief.org.

Additional links to follow us as the BBQ family gives back after disasters: