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Kookers Kare started as an idea conceived
by two Kansas City Barbeque
Society cook teams in the fall of 1996.
Larry Marks, of
BBQ team Three
Little Pigs (Raytown, Mo), and Craig Kidwell,
of team Boys of BBQ and Patty (Independence,
MO), learned that local food pantries
frequently suffered shortages of food during
the spring
and summer of each year. They felt a need to help the
underprivileged and homeless families served
by the community out-reach programs. With this
desire in mind, the first committee was formed.
It consisted of Craig and Patty Kidwell, Larry
and Joan Marks, and Bob and Margaret Nolop
(Armadillo Bob).
Eventually the budding committee
went to several more teams asking if they would
participate by cooking for the food pantries.
Many of the barbecue cooking teams of the
Kansas City Barbecue Society were excited to
be getting out the smoker early in the year
to do some cooking for the needy.
Next, the
committee started soliciting help from local businesses
and friends to provide meat and other
necessary items to get a Kookers Kare Event started. The positive response
from everyone was quite overwhelming. The committee
chose the month of March of each year to
conduct this charitable event; this being the time
of year when the pantries suffered their greatest
shortage. The first Kookers Kare event was set
for March of 1997. Their location was
Wyandotte County's Fairgrounds in Kansas City,
KS.
The committee worked hard all winter soliciting
businesses and individuals. Everything from
meat to plastic ware was needed. They gathered
donations and
commitments, not really knowing where to send
or store
the food. They contacted The City Union Mission
to receive both the donations and the cooked
meats for the first event, which was a major
success. Meat, spices, marinades, bbq sauces,
charcoal and money were all being donated by
many of the volunteers. Committee members even decided
to feed dinner to the cooks and volunteers.
Chili and hot dogs (with the fixings) rounded
out the menu, with donuts and coffee being served
for breakfast. The first year was frightfully
cold and windy. Nevertheless the numerous and generous
volunteers who prepped, cooked, and wrapped
meat assured that the results would be amazingly successful.
A combined
3000 lbs. of briskets, pork shoulders
and turkey were all cooked by 26 cold, dedicated
cookers, with the help of 75 volunteers. It
was such a success that the committee
decided to plan and organize an event for the following
year with the thought in mind to out-do the
first year's event. They wanted it to be bigger
and better in 1998. The committee had also decided
through the learning process to make Harvesters
Network the recipient for the finished product.
Harvesters Network is a part of the nationwide
"Second Harvest Food Pantry".
Harvesters handles more than 1.2 million meals
each month in the Kansas City metropolitan area
for programs such as; Restart, the Salvation
Army, Kansas City Community Kitchen, and others.
When Harvesters' founders organized more than
20 years ago their efforts were in response
to a disturbing social concern - hunger in our
community. Their
hope was to alleviate human suffering by providing
emergency food assistance to people in need.
With hope as their calling card, they were able
to secure support from local businesses, churches,
and individuals who realized they, too, could
make a difference for people in need.
Those early efforts were the seeds from which
a mighty organization has grown. And while the
need for food assistance continues to grow,
so does the hope that one day solutions will
be found (and implemented) which fully address
the root causes of hunger in our community.
In the meantime, the desire to help and the
hope that we may make a difference is manifested
in Kansas City's community, young and old. Through
countless ways the metro's population has responded
to the presence of hunger in our midst.
With all this in mind, the 1998 Kookers Kare
event was as planned.
The day of this event a local TV station presented
the morning show from the cook-site, featuring
interviews with cooks and committee members.
The day after the event, Harvesters received
calls from most of the area's food kitchens
requesting the barbeque.
There was a generous spirit, many
fabled BBQ stories told,
and lots of laughs to be had. The event's
reputation for fun and camaraderie spread, and
became quite inviting to many new cookers and
volunteers. After the second year event's great turn-out
the committee decided dinner-for-all
would become part of this event. All agreed
the second year's event was, indeed, bigger
and better then the first.
As the years have pasted,
committee members have found special ways to
make this event a "happening" in the
barbeque society.
Today's Kookers Kare Inc. committee consist of
many Kansas City Barbecue Society members.
The committee members, cookers and volunteers
continue to out do themselves every year
making the event an enormous success!!
With lots of great sponsors, record amounts of
cooked meat and dry goods are loaded into
the Harvesters truck each year. Due to the success from
this event, Kookers Kare is now able to help
Harvester's in November with a large donation
of Thanksgiving turkeys.
If you have any interest in supporting or donating
to Kookers Kare - or just want more information please contact:
Craig Kidwell - Chairman
EMAIL:
BBQBOY@kookerskare.com
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