Stan Hays | Founder
When a devastating tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, pitmaster Stan Hayes answered the call the only way he knew how—with barbecue. That moment lit the flame for Operation BBQ Relief, a nonprofit now serving hundreds of thousands in times of crisis. In this KC Cares interview, Stan shares the emotional roots of OBR, the gaps it fills in disaster relief, and how barbecue became therapy through Camp OBR. It’s not just about food—it’s about connection, comfort, and showing up when it matters most.
https://obr.org
Key Takeaways:
- Rainy Day vs Endowment: A rainy day fund is designed for emergencies and operations, unlike an endowment which typically only allows access to interest earned.
- Donor Trust & Perception: Having a reserve signals strong financial stewardship, which boosts donor confidence and appeal.
- Start Small, Be Strategic: Nonprofits can build reserves gradually—aim for 3–6 months of expenses—and treat it like a capital campaign if needed.
What Nonprofit Questions are Answered?
- What is a rainy day fund in a nonprofit? A financial reserve set aside for emergencies or unexpected drops in revenue.
- How much should a nonprofit keep in a reserve fund? Aim for 3–6 months of operating expenses as a general best practice.
- Is a rainy day fund the same as an endowment? No. Endowments typically limit access to interest, while rainy day funds can be spent during financial need.
- Can donors fund a rainy day fund? Yes, but it may require creative messaging—treat it like a capital campaign with a mission-aligned pitch.
- What are examples of earned income for nonprofits? Ventures like coffee shops, beekeeping, or training programs aligned with the nonprofit’s mission.
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KC Cares, Kansas City’s nonprofit voice, tells the stories of Kansas City nonprofits and connects them with the community.
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Transcript:
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Ruth: Welcome to KC Cares, the voice of Kansas City’s nonprofits, and we share the stories of local nonprofits and the individuals who drive them. At KC Cares, we connect the nonprofit and the business sectors to enhance the quality of life in Kansas City for both our residents and our visitors.
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Ruth: This KC Care segment is brought to you by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, www.kauffman.org.
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Ruth: I’m Ruth Bombigis.
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Ruth: It’s often said that food nourishes the soul, not just the stomach, and nowhere is that more true than with Operation BBQ Relief.
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Ruth: When an EF5 tornado devastated Joplin in 2011, a group of competitive pitmasters answered the call the best way they knew how, by firing up their smokers and feeding those in need.
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Ruth: In just 13 days, these pitmasters serve more than 120,000 hot, comforting meals to displaced families and first responders. And from the incredible act of compassion, Operation Barbecue Relief was born, an organization that’s dedicated to bringing sustenance
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Ruth: comfort, and hope to communities in crisis. Their tagline says it all, feeding communities after disasters.
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Ruth: enriching heroes’ lives every day. Well, joining us to share this heartwarming and mouth-watering story is co-founder and award-winning pitmaster, Stan Hayes. Stan, it’s so great to have you with us.
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StanHays: Thank you, Ruth, I appreciate it.
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Ruth: Well…
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Ruth: You all are crazy busy. We want to get into the meat of things, but you’ve also got some exciting, really timely information to share. But let’s go back to the very beginning, and anybody who lived in this region of the country remembers that tornado, and how awful and how devastating, but
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Ruth: I’m just so amazed how… These pitmasters, you at the lead, just said, okay.
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Ruth: We’ll go, will do. I mean, can you share with us a little bit.
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StanHays: Yeah.
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Ruth: How that happened.
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StanHays: Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of… when I think back on it, the morning after the Joplin tornado, if you… you know, let’s think… let’s take a step back. Let’s think about the day
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StanHays: that Sunday afternoon of the Joplin tornado. If you think back, you know, almost 15 years now.
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StanHays: We’re coming up on 15 years.
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StanHays: It was the second disaster that year, major, major, tornado, that you could watch almost live.
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StanHays: You know, if you think about it, back then, you know, helicopters are following the devastation path as it’s happening, and you can see off in the distance. Tuscaloosa was the first one a couple months earlier.
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StanHays: You know, and so I remember watching that, and so when it was happening in Joplin, I just remember, you know, the despair of, what could we do? You know, oh my god, what’s happening to our neighbors, right?
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StanHays: So, the next morning, as I was getting ready for work, my wife pops in, and she’s like, you should go. And, you know, being a little bit of a smart aleck, I was like, yeah, I’m a little late this morning, and she’s like, no, no.
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StanHays: We need to get barbecue guys together.
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StanHays: And just go and cook for the community.
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StanHays: And I looked at her probably like she had 3 heads or something, and I was like, okay, and I ran out the door to work.
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StanHays: Made it about 10 minutes down the road, or less, and thought, man, what she said makes a whole lot of sense.
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StanHays: Who better than a bunch of competition barbecue guys that go set up in a parking lot with minimal needs?
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StanHays: and cook against one another, but if we could bring them together to do that for good, what an impact that could make.
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StanHays: And so I called the guy who was my mentor and got me into Competition Barbecue, and before I even finished the first sentence of, hey, Jeff, what do you think? And he was like.
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StanHays: I was trying to figure out what we could do, and we just, in 15 minutes, sat there and rattled off, hey, we could do these different things, and basically hatched a plan in a 15-minute phone call to go to Joplin and get our barbecue
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StanHays: friends, our barbecue brothers and sisters, to come together. And what we thought would be 3 or 4 days, you know, and a few thousand meals, as you just said, you know, turned into 13 days and 120,000 meals from a parking lot.
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StanHays: And, you know, realistically, that 3,000 or 4,000 meals happened in day one.
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StanHays: That we were there.
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Ruth: I just can’t imagine
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Ruth: I know you all have equipment and trailers and all that, and that’s ready to go wherever, because you’re in competition. But even just assembling the food you would need to cook
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Ruth: And… and then distributing it to people who, you know.
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Ruth: may not even have a house, or… and I know, like, the hospital suffered tremendous damage.
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Ruth: Oh, gosh.
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StanHays: We had food going to all those places. The municipal center downtown that became the new hospital, or the makeshift hospital for things.
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StanHays: We were taking food there, and then we found that they had 3 shifts going, and we were only taking food for 2 of them.
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StanHays: And we found doctors and nurses, these people in the healthcare, who were eating food that had been there for 5, 6 hours, because there was nothing else to eat, and were like, oh, no, no, no, no, you know? And I’ll never forget that first night. I actually went over there with them, probably about the second day we were there.
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StanHays: And… I’m like, you guys know better than this, you guys cannot eat these.
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Ruth: this.
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StanHays: You know, you guys are in healthcare. And one lady goes, can I have it? And I was like, no. And she’s like, no, I’ve got… out of my farm, I have about 15 animals that we’ve…
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StanHays: rescued from around town from this, and we don’t know who the… whose they are or anything, but I need food, you know, dog food for them, so I was gonna take this food home so I could chop it up and give it to them. I was like, okay, as long as you’re not trying to eat it, but, you know, let’s… let me do some work so I… and, you know, a couple days later, I was able to connect them with, you know, with one of the…
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StanHays: The shelters to… so she could get dog food.
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StanHays: You know, for it. But… In that moment, you know, when you look back at, you know, this.
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StanHays: It… it became less about the barbecue?
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StanHays: And more about showing up.
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StanHays: More about showing those in their worst days.
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StanHays: That they weren’t forgotten.
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StanHays: And I’d love to take credit for thinking of that, and really having that be the genesis, right? But it was a little old lady who pulled into the parking lot on day 2,
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StanHays: that told… said, you know, I heard I could get some food here. And I showed her to the line.
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StanHays: And she got a pulled pork sandwich, some green beans, and some stuff.
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StanHays: And then I saw her over by her car crying. And mind you, I watched this car roll into the parking lot. And, you know.
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StanHays: it was a total disaster itself. I mean, this car had been hit by limbs, the windshields cracked.
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Ruth: Hmm.
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StanHays: And I could barely see the lady in it, because there was so much stuff packed to the ceiling in there, and all I could think of was, this is everything that this woman has left in her life, probably, packed into this car.
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StanHays: So when I see her back at her car now with her food, her little to-go box.
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StanHays: And she’s crying.
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StanHays: And I’m just like, oh my gosh, what happened? And I go over there, and I’m like, are you okay? Can I help you? And she’s like, I just need to know who to thank.
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Ruth: And I looked at her, and I was like, ma’am, it’s just a pulled pork sandwich, and she’s like, no.
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StanHays: She goes, it’s so much more than that. You know, you’re showing me there’s still good in humanity, right? That you guys care, that you’re showing love to this community, that we’re not forgotten.
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StanHays: yes, you’re doing it through barbecue, but, you know, it’s more that you showed up here and are doing something for us. And I just remember sitting there crying myself as she’s telling me this, going.
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StanHays: I never, you know, I mean, we’re two days into this, we don’t know what we’re doing, we’re a bunch of competition barbecue guys, but to this day, whenever I doubt myself, or I doubt what the organization’s doing, or, you know, I can go and pull that out of my back pocket, so to speak, and go.
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StanHays: Are we doing these things? Are we making an impact in the community? Are we showing them love? Are we showing them they’re not forgotten? Because if we are, you know, yeah, the food is the result.
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StanHays: You know, the food is what makes it, you know, over the top, maybe. I mean, let’s face it, barbecue is quintessential comfort food, so when you can add that in with something so impactful as what she was talking about, it makes you realize it’s so much more than a pulled pork sandwich.
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StanHays: You know, and that, that, you know, that’s one of the many things that we learned in that parking lot in Joplin.
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StanHays: That we still use today, almost 15 years later.
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Ruth: what… so how do you come after that? You’ve helped all these people, etc, and you responded to an emergency. So…
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Ruth: what next steps?
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StanHays: Next steps is you decompress from everything that you saw. You know, I was in insurance for almost 24 years, and at that point, I was in insurance,
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StanHays: Shoot.
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StanHays: over 13, 14 years, probably? You know, maybe 15 years at that point in time.
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StanHays: And… and I had, you know, I sat there and… and thought, I’ve been to so many tornadoes, so many other disasters, but this one hit differently, you know?
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StanHays: So we went back, and we knew by day 3, we had already started talking about the gap that existed, you know, from the time that we got there till the big boys came in, and were going to be there for the weeks, months, even years.
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Ruth: Right. Through the rebuilding of the community.
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StanHays: But that we really hit this niche of, Filling a gap.
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StanHays: So, as we started talking about that on day 3, I remember sitting there with a group, and there was a guy who… who responded to Katrina. He worked for a poultry company and brought in a whole semi-truckload of poultry… of, you know, chicken.
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StanHays: And he’s like, dude, I’ve never seen anything like this. And I went to Katrina, and it was, you know, it was utter chaos. You know, you guys have this down, like, you guys have been doing this forever, and we’re like, you know, we’re just… this is, you know, you’re… we’re still in the 72 hours of chaos, as I call it, you know.
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Ruth: Anytime.
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StanHays: Setting up till the time we really start making things happen.
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StanHays: And he was like, you know, there needs to be more coordination, and we’re like, well, we’re wondering, really, you know, in the back of our head, you know, have we found this gap that we can uniquely qualify ourselves to fill?
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StanHays: from a parking lot with minimal needs, and, you know, everybody sitting around that evening was like, absolutely, we can do this. So, we took a week off after we left the parking lot to, you know, sort of recharge, refresh.
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StanHays: And then we came back… a group of us came back together and said, alright, what do we need to do? You know, what’s the process? You know, and we have no money. So, to go out there, and so we filed all of our IRS paperwork ourselves.
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StanHays: Like, 2 or 3 times. Didn’t send enough money this time, we need another check for this, or you didn’t check this box, we need you to do that. And so about a little over 6 months later.
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StanHays: we finally got our 501c3 status from the IRS. So, it was February of 2012 when we got that letter saying, hey, you guys are good to go. Now…
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StanHays: to say that we had a bunch of ideas of what we were gonna do, we really didn’t. It was like, hey, we’re gonna react when we’re needed. You know, and we’re just… from the time of Joplin on, we just started trying to build an infrastructure of volunteers that… of what was going to be coming.
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StanHays: what we were going to be doing and how we were going to do it. And that’s the genesis of how this all started. It, it, you know, it is far from the competition barbecue world today.
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StanHays: Our volunteers may be rooted in that area, but today, it is that person that has the heart to give.
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StanHays: that… that…
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StanHays: that mom who’s looking for something because the kids are now in school, that church group that is saying, hey, what can we do to help in our community? You know, and, you know, we get a lot of retired folks, a lot of business owners that are, you know, have been around long enough that they have stability in their work that are like, hey, I can take off a week.
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StanHays: I can come do this. You know, to the college-age kids that I start talking to today that are my kids’ age, that I, that I say, hey, you know, you guys should look at doing these things, because, hey, if you’ll come out and work for a week.
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StanHays: I’ll put you up, I’ll make sure, you know, you’ve got a clean place to lay your head, and 3 meals a day, and you’re gonna work hard, but I guarantee you at the end, you know, you’re gonna feel good about what you’ve done.
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StanHays: And that’s what we’re trying to create, is more of that…
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StanHays: That experience that the volunteers get and understand to draw them in.
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Ruth: So you came together, you created this nonprofit, no money, so to speak, etc. How did you…
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Ruth: really get up and going. You obviously had the passion there, you had the skills of people to, you know, to cook and to feed, but how did you then decide to organize it, and what you would respond to? Because Lord knows there’s enough disasters.
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StanHays: So, let’s start with, you know, I’d say there’s a lot of grit and determination, and coming from the corporate world of insurance, you know, one of the things I learned very early on from an agent that I was working with is, you know, he’s like, Stan, you’re gonna have to hear so many no’s to find the yes.
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StanHays: You know, and I thought, man, in the insurance world, that makes all the sense in the world, and I believe it’s gonna be the same thing as a non-profit.
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StanHays: Because we’re gonna be hitting, you know, every nonprofit’s hitting the local businesses, the local, you know, for funds, for support, for whatever. So, it’s like dialing for dollars. How, you know, you just have to talk to so many people.
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StanHays: say the right things till you can get them to say yes. And that, you know, that was my big side of the organization. There was 3 of us that, you know, co-founded the organization. One is no longer active.
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StanHays: But the two of us, you know, we each had sort of our verticals, if you were. And, you know, I guess, unluckily for some people, this was the face that became, you know, synonymous with the organization and put out there.
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StanHays: But, you know, I also, you know, you learn early on from the corporate world, sometimes you know.
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StanHays: People you hire may not have the passion that you do for the business that you’re in.
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Ruth: Right.
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StanHays: So, you have to… you have to do your best to train them up, get them to the point of that passion, and it wasn’t hard when they came out, and they see the result, and they see the impact that you’re making, to have people tell you how, you know, as a volunteer, you’ve helped change their life.
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StanHays: and move them to a better place. So, for us, that was… it was all-encompassing. It was… it was getting out there, it was the grit and determination to move forward. But, you know.
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StanHays: as you said, there’s not a shortage of disasters. So now, as a bunch of volunteers across the country, how do you
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StanHays: You know, we’ve created this network of saying, hey.
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Ruth: or something.
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StanHays: In your area, let us know, see what we can do, to then say, okay.
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StanHays: Alright, this tornado, it hit, and it’s bad, but guess what? The churches are open.
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StanHays: The, you know, the mom-and-pop food places, the chain food places are all serving people in the community.
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StanHays: A community really doesn’t heal when a bunch of outsiders come and start doing things there. It really heals after the outsiders leave.
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StanHays: And the locals rise up to take it on themselves.
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Ruth: So, the thought is, is…
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StanHays: If they’re able to do that, why would we ever insert ourselves?
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StanHays: You know, if they don’t need us.
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StanHays: Let’s not go, you know, even though you or some of our volunteers or a supporter may think it’s needed in that community, we really have to look at the community and say, is it needed? Now, sometimes it’s a no-brainer, right? Like, Joplin, they don’t know what they don’t know.
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Ruth: more Oklahoma, almost 2 years to the exact day, he had more Oklahoma.
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StanHays: It hit the same street that it hit in 1997.
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Ruth: I know, terrible.
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StanHays: So, those things were never even, you know… Now, we went to Moore, Oklahoma, much more organized, much bigger smokers than what we had.
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StanHays: We still weren’t known. You know, we were riding the coattails of other organizations, getting into that… those parking lots, getting past the barricades to where we needed to go to get those meals out.
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StanHays: You know, and that’s why, as we’ve grown, you know, we look at it from not a standpoint of, I don’t want to work with other organizations. They may take that donation dollar that was meant for me.
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StanHays: to having more of a mindset of, you know, we can do so much more together than we can divided, why aren’t we working together? You know?
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StanHays: Because I can’t do everything. I can’t serve… there’s not one organization right now in the United States that can go serve the meals needed in Jamaica after the hurricane this last week. So, you know, how do we all work together and not overlap each other so much?
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StanHays: that We cause chaos.
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Ruth: Right.
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StanHays: And that’s where I tell everybody, yeah, we’re known as a feeding organization.
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StanHays: But today, I consider us more of a logistics and problem-solving organization, and figuring out how to do this better, how to use the technology to be smarter, how to use those connections with others to ensure that we all are doing the good for the community. Because that’s, at the end of the day, what everybody’s trying to do.
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Ruth: Here’s help.
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StanHays: Yep.
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Ruth: We’re talking with Stan Hayes, he’s a co-founder and a award-winning pitmaster for Operation BBQ Relief.
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Ruth: So you guys have just grown exponentially. Tell us some of the other things that you do beyond the very important work of responding to a Jamaica hurricane or a Joplin tornado.
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StanHays: Yeah, you know, so when you think about it, there are more blue sky days every year than there are gray sky.
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StanHays: So, how do you continue to make an impact when you’re a reactionary organization, you know, waiting for the next disaster to happen?
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StanHays: And really, you know, we went to our volunteers and said, hey.
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StanHays: If you, you know, had time, if you had somebody, what would you do to make an impact in the community, you know, working with us?
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StanHays: And about 8 times out of 10, it came back. We would do something for the reserve unit that’s getting called up in my, you know, in my neck of the woods that is going to go overseas for 14 months, or…
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StanHays: hey, you know, we just had a fatality, you know, a fireman died in a fire, and I would do something to help, you know, there, or
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StanHays: police, or I’d like to show appreciation for these heroes that give to us every day, the ones that are running towards the disturbance instead of away. And…
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StanHays: We got to thinking, what better way, when we’re not in disaster, is to use our passion for grilling and barbecue? You know, food’s the greatest unifier. I think we can all agree that food brings more people together than anything else.
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StanHays: So, if we can use those basics, and barbecue being, you know, that quintessential comfort food that goes along with it, how can we make an impact? And so, we started looking at what our volunteers were asking us that they wanted to do.
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StanHays: And, you know, it took a while, but in 2019, we hired the second full-time employee ever at the organization, and it was, for that person, was… just… had come from the Army, had just retired.
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StanHays: And we said, we want you to build out and solidify these things that we’ve been doing for about 4 years now, but not really taking credit for it, because we’re trying to keep people active and volunteers engaged and everything. But we want to start taking and be purposeful and mindful about what we’re doing about it.
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StanHays: And so, we decided we’d start what we call the Always Serving Project, and that was really focused on…
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StanHays: you know, the first responders, the veterans, the active military, their families in communities across the country, and how we could continue to impact them. And so, we started doing little events there, and then it grew into doing a, you know, a two-day barbecue academy, where we immersed them into.
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Ruth: fun.
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StanHays: Grilling and barbecue.
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StanHays: And end with some fun, with a little competition. Competition is always good, you know, out there.
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StanHays: And that’s how the genesis of it started, but, you know… Then 2020 comes.
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StanHays: We had 25 events nationwide at VA hospitals, on bases, you know, at police action leagues, or fire training centers.
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StanHays: All canceled.
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StanHays: We got 3 or 4… 4 of them in.
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StanHays: out of the 25 that we had scheduled for that year. And we thought about it, and we’re like, we need to look at this model. Is this sustainable to drive a truck and a trailer across the country, back and forth, and doing this, and do we have the personnel and the volunteers to always make this happen?
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StanHays: And the idea was one that I came up with probably in, like, 2015, 2016, and it was a campground.
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StanHays: And where we could bring people together, we could do this, you know, what we were doing with Barbecue Academy, but do it more as a therapeutic way of bringing people together around food.
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StanHays: Now, that morphed from a campground into a camp, into cabins, and what we have today at Camp OBR is 190 acres on Lake of the Ozarks that meshes culinary therapy
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StanHays: You know, for those suffering from physical or emotional injury or for loss of a loved one in the line of service.
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StanHays: you know, with outdoor adventure. So.
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Ruth: whether.
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StanHays: Whether it is, you know, taking them on a four-wheel, you know, four-wheeler and taking them around, you know, the property, or taking them down to the dock because they’ve never fished before, or taking them on a pontoon ride.
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StanHays: at dusk, as the sun’s going down over Lake of the Ozarks, or something like that, giving them, you know, a little bit of adventure that they may never have. I mean, axe throwing, archery, we have skeet shooting.
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StanHays: We have a couple miles of hiking trails around the property, not to mention then the ATV trails. So, now we have a full day of activity for somebody, on top of putting them through the culinary education class that’s truly… when you think about culinary therapy, there’s not much difference between that
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StanHays: Art therapy, music therapy, with one huge distinction.
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StanHays: Everybody’s gotta eat, and that’s what makes it more important in my mind. I’m not saying that it’s better than the others, but I’m saying that you’re giving them life skills at the end of the day.
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StanHays: So now, it is something that you walk away with that is bigger and better, and important for them, because
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StanHays: The same things that art and music do, you know, the way it affects the brain, you know, from…
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StanHays: You know, when you’re following a recipe, that’s what you’re doing, is you’re activating those parts of the brain. And then when you start getting… I tell everybody, when you start getting into seasoning, and trying to decide, hey, do I want this to be savory? Do I want it to be sweet? Do I want it to be spicy? And you’ve got a whole pantry of different barbecue rubs to try.
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StanHays: to see. That’s where the creative side of the brain really starts firing. And…
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StanHays: And they’re doing it with others that are struggling the way they are.
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StanHays: And so, by bringing them together, you know, people that are alike.
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StanHays: together, really helps them bond, it helps them find an additional purpose and an additional outlet. We have volunteers that have come from these camps already, and we’re only really in our second year of camps. And we’ve had volunteers, you know, because we bring in people from all over the country.
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StanHays: That have joined in.
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StanHays: And now, you know, because if you look at what we say, our mission isn’t about feeding people. It isn’t about barbecue. It’s about connecting, inspiring, educating.
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StanHays: You know, people far and wide.
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StanHays: So, if we can bring them in and do those things, we’re fulfilling our charitable mission.
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StanHays: you know, outside of disasters, just like we’re doing it in disasters, as we’re connecting with people that have gone through their worst day. We’re inspiring them to maybe provide service and do something above and beyond in their community afterwards. And we’re educating them about how, you know, food can make a difference.
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Ruth: you’re building… you’re building community. We have just a moment or two left.
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StanHays: Yep.
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Ruth: What can the community do for you, and where should they go for information?
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StanHays: Yeah, so great question. You know, first is, everybody should go to OBR.org, you know, that’s Operation Barbecue Relief, or BBQRelief.org, but we’ve shortened it down to a short OBR.org URL, but first place to start is
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StanHays: If you want to become a volunteer, go click that volunteer button, go through the process. You can do it from the website, or you can go to the app store for
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StanHays: You know, for an Android or for an iPhone, and just search OBR Volunteer. We have an app that they can download, do the same thing, and it’s actually.
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Ruth: Great.
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StanHays: Because you can turn on your push notifications so you’ll be notified. And this year, we’ll do 140 non-disaster events around the country.
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Ruth: Wow.
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StanHays: So we’re doing a lot of things outside of disaster, because we can programmatically know what we’re doing on that side.
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StanHays: If you cannot do that, we understand, but consider a donation. There’s another right next to that volunteer button as a donate button. Go donate, whether it’s $5 or $5,000, it doesn’t matter, it all helps. And lastly, if you’re not in a place to do either of those, share this story. Use this, you know, use this and share it on your social media to your friends and family, because maybe there are some
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StanHays: people out there that want to get involved, volunteering, want to get involved, and maybe they want a sponsor. Maybe they run a company, and they see and they want to align with an organization doing good.
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StanHays: You know, we need all of those things. And so, I appreciate the opportunity to come on and talk about this, and, you know, also how people can get involved.
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Ruth: Well, Stan, we appreciate you, the passion, and you know, you may not say it’s about food, but it does bring everybody together in community, so that when things happen, you know, that’s what we need. So, kudos to you and your team, and thanks for spending time with us to share it all.
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StanHays: As you can tell, I’m quite passionate about it, and I love telling the story of, you know, how we do good.
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Ruth: Well, thank you, and thank you for joining us on KC Cares. We are produced by a non-profit, which is called Charitable Communications, and this KC Cares segment was brought to you by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
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Ruth: www.kauffman.org. Now, if you want to be a guest or to find out anything else about us, our website is kccaresOnline.org. We spread the love, and you can find us on Facebook and Twitter at KC Cares Radio and Instagram.
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Ruth: at KC Cares Online. And don’t forget, you can catch us on Saturday mornings at 8 a.m. on ESPN 1510 AM and 94.5 FM. Thanks for joining us on KC Cares.
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