Bears BBQ owner travels to Turkey to provide earthquake relief

This is local restaurateur Jimmy McDonald’s latest relief mission with World Central Kitchen.

The Orchard, Kahramanmaraş – Jamie MacDonald is no stranger to visiting countries that have been hit by natural and man-made disasters, and the damage he sees in Turkey after the recent earthquake is “staggering.”

McDonald, owner of Bear’s Smokehouse Restaurants, is on the grounds in Elbistan, Turkey on business and serving meals with World Central Kitchen.

“It’s devastation, a really very sad situation,” McDonald said via Zoom interview from the World Central Kitchen service center in Elbistan.

Al-Bustan is a town of about 150,000 people about 100 miles from the Syrian border.

“I would say at least 80% of buildings in the city have been destroyed or damaged in such a way that they will not be usable in the future,” McDonald added.

Almost a month has passed since the February 6 earthquake and powerful aftershocks that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria. More than 46,000 people were killed, some 230,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged, and hundreds of thousands of people were left homeless. It is the worst disaster in Turkey’s modern history.

The United Nations estimates that the earthquake killed about 6,000 people in Syria.

About two million survivors were housed in temporary housing or evacuated from the quake-devastated area, according to Turkish government figures.

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McDonald, who last year worked with World Central Kitchen in Poland to provide relief to Ukrainian refugees and provided food for displaced hurricane victims in the United States, said his latest assignment was among his most rewarding experiences.

“We are in about eight different locations across eastern Turkey and we are just trying to serve people as much food as we can every day,” he said.

While he is supposed to return to Hartford sometime next week, McDonald may stay a little longer to continue serving displaced residents in the earthquake-ravaged region of Turkey.

“It’s sad, a lot of people have lost everything,” said MacDonald, then added, “The way I think it’s part of being successful — what’s the point of having a good business if you don’t get it back?”

McDonald noted that supporting Kitchen World Central remains the overriding goal. To learn more about Kitchen World Central click here.

Jamie Altman is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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