NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — For Patrick Wenner, the smoker is his canvas.
"Food is a form of art and just like any other form of art, if you have a gift for it or you apply yourself to it, you just learn how to fine-tune it," he said.
Like any artist, Wenner loves to share his work with the community.
"If the food doesn't make you want to keep eating when you're full, I haven't done my job," he said.
So when he saw the destruction in Kentucky, it sparked an idea.
"[I'm] trying to make everything fit so we can feed 1,000 people out of one pickup truck," said Wenner as he packed 500 pounds of meat on his truck bed.
"I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m kind of nervous," he admitted.
That carefully slow-cooked barbecue is his passion. Now, he's hoping it'll bring some quick relief to those devastated by the Kentucky flood.
"These people don't have much comfort up there, when I don't know if there's going to be electricity. I don't know if there's going to be running water," said Wenner. "But just being able to bring that some sort of normality to the chaos that I know is going on up there right now."
With his truck packed and the smoker in tow, he's hit the road on his own.
"It reminded me of Waverly, and Waverly had Nashville an hour down the street, and we just poured into Waverly and, not to say it was easy, but we helped to get them on their feet," said Wenner. "Kentucky doesn't have that."
He's making sure the taste of southern comfort lives up to its name.
"They can come in at the end of the day from helping their neighbors and have dinner ready, waiting when they get there," Wenner said.
It's his own unique way of showing love when everything else has been lost.
"I think we all have something to give," said Wenner. "It's finding your gift and using that to help other people."
If you would like to donate to his efforts, you can visit his GoFundMe page.
