Earlier this month, Operation BBQ Relief, a Kansas City-based nonprofit that serves free barbecue to communities impacted by natural disasters, deployed to Maui, Hawaii, where wildfires have claimed the lives of 115 people and destroyed large swaths of the island.
Stan Hays, co-founder and CEO of Operation BBQ Relief, told KCUR's Up To Date that their goal is to provide a sense of solace through food.
"Barbecue's comfort food, and in somebody's worst time of need, they need that comforting, they need that sort of family and the hug, and barbecue can give that," he said.
According to an Operation BBQ Relief spokesperson, volunteers have served about 20,500 hot meals since arriving in Maui on August 13.
- Stan Hays, Operation BBQ Relief co-founder and CEO
