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Operation BBQ Relief Sets Up In Wilmington

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Finding food can be a challenge during the days after a hurricane.  Starting today, a national organization has set up camp in Wilmington, to feed the community. They will be preparing tens of thousands of meals. WHQR’s Vince Winkel reports. 

The mouth-watering smell of barbecue is swirling around the old K-Mart Parking lot on College Avenue in Wilmington.

From now until early October, the Operation BBQ Relief disaster response team will be cooking hundreds of thousands of pounds of turkey, chicken, beef brisket and other items to help Wilmington recover. David Marks is with Operation BBQ Relief, a non-profit that helps communities after a disaster has struck.

So we have multiple facets going on in this operation right now. We're producing yesterday and we're not even fully set up yet. We're still setting up. We produced 15,000 meals here yesterday. We will produce probably in the vicinity of 20 to 25,000 today depending on where the needs continue to come in. So we actually prepare food organizations like the Salvation Army come in and get food from us. The fire department, the police stations, the local churches come in and get food from us. And from there we just deploy that food out. We also set up a kitchen here for people to come in and get fed.”

To volunteer with the group, go online to OBR.ORG. They are in need volunteers.

For WHQR News, I’m Vince Winkel.

Copyright 2021 WHQR. To see more, visit WHQR.

From now until early October, the Operation BBQ Relief disaster response team will be cooking hundreds of thousands of pounds of turkey, chicken, beef brisket and other items to help Wilmington recover.
Vince Winkel /
From now until early October, the Operation BBQ Relief disaster response team will be cooking hundreds of thousands of pounds of turkey, chicken, beef brisket and other items to help Wilmington recover.
Vince Winkel /
From now until early October, the Operation BBQ Relief disaster response team will be cooking hundreds of thousands of pounds of turkey, chicken, beef brisket and other items to help Wilmington recover.
Vince Winkel /
From now until early October, the Operation BBQ Relief disaster response team will be cooking hundreds of thousands of pounds of turkey, chicken, beef brisket and other items to help Wilmington recover.
Vince Winkel /

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Vince Winkel joined the WHQR news team in March, 2017. He had previously been covering business and economics for the Greater Wilmington Business Journal.
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