‘Come hang out on a Thursday’: 2 years after Helene, Big Yummy is still cooking in Marion

By late morning, the asparagus is on the grill and the chicken quarters are coming out in the pans, roasted in a creamy Italian sauce, ready for the women Big Yummy calls his “Golden Girls.” They build the plates. He preps everything else. Today, that’s 700 plates.

“It’s all about the prep,” he says, more than once.

Big Yummy, whose name is Sonny Carter, was born and raised in western North Carolina. Two years ago, he knew nothing of disaster relief.

“That’s the stuff you see on TV,” he said. “I had no idea.”

Then Hurricane Helene hit on a Friday night. By that weekend, he was feeding people out of a pickup truck near Linville, cooking at the barn where he kept his mobile kitchen. The next Saturday, at a gas station on the road to Spruce Pine, Big Yummy and his wife, Shirley Bruce, served more than 3,000 meals.

Locals showed up early and kept saying their neighbor needed it worse. Bruce talked them into eating before food went bad. Some hadn’t eaten in three or four days.

When outside relief work workers poured in and ate, the locals headed home. Once the workers left around 6 p.m., the locals came back to eat. The husband and wife team served meals until almost 2 a.m.

“It was a beautiful day. It was a crazy day,” Big Yummy said. “But God has a plan.”

That plan now lives in a Marion building they named Base Camp because in the mountains, that’s where you go when you’re in trouble. Three nonprofits work out of it.

Big Yummy’s Feed the People does the hot meals, Base Camp handles groceries and case management, and Danielle Gossett runs street outreach through the Redeeming Hope Project.

Lately, Gossett’s chasing water tankers for families whose wells are contaminated or wiped out. The first just arrived in Lansing in Ashe County, and 20 more families are on her list.

On Thursdays, people take a number and come for groceries, a hot meal, or both.  Those with medical or immunity issues come at 11 a.m. Everyone else comes at noon until about 3:30 p.m.

About 150 people walk in, with most picking up for a household, meaning anywhere from 450 to 700 people eat. Most come from McDowell County, although some come from as far as Yancey and Buncombe counties.

“If you get here, we’ll feed you,” Bruce said.

Bruce doesn’t just believe in handing out boxes. Volunteers can pack a grocery bag for somebody, and half of it “can just sit on their shelf, and it goes to waste, and it’s ridiculous,” she said.

Instead, a volunteer walks the aisles with each person, acting as more or less a personal shopper, and they pick out what they’ll really eat. There’s even what Bruce calls a return buggy policy. Get something home and don’t care for it? “Bring it back to me,” she tells people.

Hot plates are out at the checkout table, enough for whoever’s at home.

“You tell me there’s 20 in your family, and I’m not going to your home to check,” Bruce said. “You take 20 meals.”

People are really good about it, she reflected.

Jeanette Hensley comes Tuesdays to put up produce and Thursdays to walk people through. Who comes in? Anybody, Hensley said. Groceries are so high, gas too.

“We don’t turn anybody away,” Hensley said. “We don’t look down on people.”

Chip James from the nearby neighborhood of Woodlawn was delivering for another food hub in February when he noticed the traffic and pulled in.

“Thought I’d better stick around,” he said.

Nobody here is paid. Big Yummy cooks weekends at Banks Creek Barn, and that money comes back here. Once a month, he takes meals to Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry’s Veterans Quarters in Black Mountain.

People come up to Big Yummy and tell him this is the only hot meal they get all week, and folks ask him why he’s still at it two years later.

“They’re still in need,” he says.

Most of the people who come through live in campers or tiny homes, Bruce told me. “We still got people in tents,” she said.

When she shares that, often people don’t believe her, she said.

Big Yummy thinks it may be as bad now as it was after the storm, if not worse. Two years ago, everybody was donating, he said. Then the wildfires hit California, “and they went,” he said. “Gone.”

Money is tight. Bruce figures she needs at least $10,000 a month for the food side, closer to $15,000 to cover all of Base Camp.

Propane is a big cost.

“Our propane is our lifeline,” she says. “If we don’t have propane, we can’t cook.”

It heats the building, too, and the building is hard to heat in the winter. That Thursday, the tank read 15%. Filling it costs about $2,500, Bruce said.

When bad weather’s coming, emergency management calls her up, Bruce said. They’ve asked her to be ready as a backup shelter.

“Well, if we don’t have propane, we can’t do that,” she said.

Food’s the other worry. Three walk-in refrigerators and a walk-in freezer sit with room to spare.

“We have plenty of space for food,” Bruce said. “We just need the food.”

Breakfast items top her list. She’d love frozen meat and cheese, too, and bread to send home with people. Big Yummy could always use No. 10 cans of vegetables.

Last winter, the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte stepped up and covered the propane. Big Yummy figures somebody, somewhere will do the same this year.

“I really don’t worry about it too much,” he said. “God provides.”

He won’t stand up and ask. The way he sees it, people give what God puts on their heart.

“Come hang out on a Thursday,” Big Yummy said. “Come sit with these people. A lot of them, that’s what they need. They need you to hold their hands. Listen. Be there.”

To volunteer, donate propane or food, or visit on a Thursday, find Feed the People, Base Camp, and the Redeeming Hope Project on Facebook. You can also call 828-674-8461 or email sonnycarter2012@gmail.com.