The heat wave and drought conditions have made for a serious Wildfire emergency here in Louisiana if you can
believe it. This past week, 1,000 National Guard troops were activated, and depolyed to DeRidder to fight the outbreak of fires. Several towns had to be evacuated because of the threat and
numerous homes and properties have been destroyed. Fire companies throughout the state have gone over to assist... it is a HUGE effort.
United by BBQ, #UnitedbyBBQ Made the decision to do what we could to help. We were able to deliver BBQ chopped Beef, Pork Loin steaks and bread to make roughly 500 sandwiches. This is really what we are all about. Being able to respond and deliver Love Packed BBQ when it's needed to help bring relief in disasters. THIS is what YOUR donations make happen!! It was a spur of the moment decision to go over and help.... so let me give you the BACK STORY.
Earlier in the week, I picked up a case of Eye of Chuck Roll from Our Daily Bread, a great partner of ours. We had been using this meat in the jambalaya and pastalaya that we serve on Tuesday and Thursday to 1,400 people. It's a very big cut of meat and I wanted to get in on the smoker and see what we had. For whatever reason.... :) ..... I also picked up 2 cases of Pork Loins that another partner of ours, S&W Foods is storing for us. The plan was to cook them Thursday night and process on Friday, vacuum seal, and get them into the freezer for inventory to use as needed.
Thursday didn't work out, and I moved the cook to Friday night/Saturday. I went down to our warehouse and prepared the 5 Huge Roasts and the Pork Loins and got them on the pit around 4 PM. AFTER I had them on the pit, I get a message from Ben Husser of Cajun Navy asking if we were going over to feed the firefighters in DeRidder? It was the first I had heard about the magnitude of the fires over there. I looked up to God and said... I guess You had a plan. With the meat we had on the smoker, we would generate 500 sandwiches... and now we knew where they were headed.
Throughout the night, I was checking on the cook and spritzing the roasts... They looked Fantastic! In the morning, they we done and so I turned off the pit and let them rest while I attended the Tangipahoa Prayer Meeting in Independence. The message from both speakers had a consistent tone... Find Your calling, and Give it to God!
So now, what would be the plan for getting the meat over to the Firefighters? I made a couple calls to friends to see if they could recruit transport teams as well as find a location where we could drop it off, or serve it. Calls were made, but no luck.... coming up empty. So I'm sitting there thinking... we can't just not go.... OK, I'll drive over myself. I went and got enough bread for the sandwiches, loaded up the truck with all the supplies, kissed my wife, and hit the road. I knew I was headed to DeRidder, but no idea where?
Along the way, my wife, Caroline, started working the phones and got ahold of the Sheriff's office in Beauregard Parish. They gave Caroline the address where they command center for operations was located. She tried to get ahold of the facility, but no luck. She texted me the address, and that's where I was headed.
When I arrived, IT was the perfect location for us to deliver the meals. Two nuns with Catholic Charities were coordinating the food distribution to firefighters and they had the people necessary to get the food where it
needed to be. God put together A Perfect Connection!
The nuns and Command Center team were extremely thankful for our contribution. I left there in such good spirits, and I still am, knowing that we were able to make a little contribution to those helping in such a disaster. This feeling we get when we engage to help is like NO OTHER! I am so thankful for all of those that financially support United by BBQ and I truly want You all to feel that same sense of purpose and gratification. We are all one team. I may be the one out front, but we can't be successful without the O-Line... lol
God bless ya'll and Thanks again for your support.
