After Hurricane Irma, people from all over the country came to Plant City to help get everything back to normal. Layla Drawdy and the Hardwood BBQ team knew what those linemen, first responders and residents doing what they could to help out needed but couldn’t easily have: a hot, home-cooked meal.
So on Sept. 16, the group did something about it. After three days of planning and rounding up food, Hardwood BBQ set up shop at Diamond R Fertilizer and cooked hundreds of pounds of food, served hungry people and didn’t charge a dime, though many chose to donate money to help Hardwood pay for the food.
“We are a community that likes to come together and do things for people that are in need or people that are doing great things for us,” Drawdy said. “We just felt like, you know, these people are out here working 16-hour shifts seven days a week and they’re eating, but they’re not getting any home cooking. We just wanted to feed these people and anybody that was out of power for any amount of time that just hadn’t had any good food.”
Hardwood split $1,880 in leftover donation money between the United Food Bank of Plant City and Florida 4-H and FFA’s RCMA assistance missions in south Florida, and leftover food was donated to the Hands of Hope initiative.