By Sue Newman  February 22, 2012

One year after the February 22 earthquake, Trevor Hurley says he's become an expert at cooking sausages on the streets of Christchurch.

But that's only part of the story. Trevor and his wife Jane look back at the past year and count it in friends made, in overwhelming respect and gratitude for their Ashburton community and in an emotional attachment to Christchurch that they never expected to have.
Trevor, Jane and countless others from around the district became part of the Trev's Barbecue team that travelled to Christchurch over a nine-month period taking food, friendship and household items to some of the city's hardest-hit earthquake victims.
Their story began on February 22 at 12.51pm.
Jane, a nurse, was at an international urology conference in Christchurch, Trevor was in Ashburton.
There was the immediate panic after the quake of not being able to contact one another, but eventually Trevor heard from Jane – "I'm okay, but I'm going to the hospital to help..."
Later that evening Trevor drove to Christchurch to collect his wife and was horrified by what he found.
"It looked like the whole of Christchurch was evacuating and as we were driving out, we realised we had to do something. The more we talked, the more we thought, what can we do to help?"
Their decision was a simple one, to provide hot food for people who were without power or without homes. They decided to take their barbecue to Christchurch, to find a place of need and to cook food.
"The next morning, I rang the local radio station and told them what we had wanted to do. We asked for donations and contacted local business. And they gave without any hesitation – sausages, bread, sauce, coffee, tea and biscuits."
They grabbed their daughter, her friend, a work colleague and her son, and drove north, listening to the radio on the way. They discovered a welfare relief centre was being set up at Cowles Stadium and decided to head there.
"People were arriving in droves and most just had the clothes they wore. They were in varying states of disbelief and shock. It looked like something you'd see on TV; it's a memory, we will never forget."
They set up, they cooked, they talked and made hundreds of cups of tea and coffee. Between 4.30pm and 12.30am they'd fed 400 people. They knew they were fortunate, they could leave the city that night, they could return to a home that was undamaged, where there was still electricity and where life was relatively normal.
Except that for Jane and Trevor, life would never be the same kind of normal again. They'd stepped into the hell that was post-earthquake Christchurch, they'd stood side by side with people who had lost their homes, had lost friends and family.
They might have come home to Ashburton in the early hours of the morning, but they knew they were committed to going back, to helping as long as the need was there. They also knew the task ahead, taking food, friendship, clothing and household items to displaced people in Christchurch, could not be done by just two people.
Trevor spoke on the radio daily about where (what quickly became known as) Trev's Barbecue, had been, what the aid team had seen and what was needed.
"Whatever we asked for, it came.
"Groceries, vegetables, meat, baby needs, baking, water, barbecues – everything. Cold weather came in March and we asked for gas heaters and blankets.
"It was like magic when we got home as 10 gas heaters had miraculously appeared on our verandah."
The response from across the Ashburton District blew the barbecue team away, he said.
Both Jane and Trevor had their own work commitments and needed big teams of volunteers.
They asked and people came. Within a few days more than 150 people had offered to help.
"I arranged for several businesses in town to be drop-off points for donations, organised people to collect the goods and deliver them to a packing shed where others sorted and packed everything ready for transport."
The packing shed at Rodger and Pauline Withell's took on a life of its own and became a pivotal hub of Trev's BBQ.
Jane became the co-ordinator of the teams of people to go to Christchurch. Each day two teams of six were needed to take two, four-wheel-drive vehicles. And those drivers had to be confident in navigating the broken city streets. Another towed a trailer with a 900-litre tank of fresh water.
In those early days, Trevor said, he could never have imagined the service would continue running for nine months.
"But over all that time our goal remained simple and constant – to help as many people as we could and help those most in need."
Moving their mobile service to meet need, wherever that might be, meant Trevor and Jane liaised almost daily with many Christchurch organisations, city councillors, church leaders, schools, and the residents themselves assessing where their help was needed most.
"Over the nine months, we received donations from an incredible number of local businesses, community organisations, sports and service clubs, schools and individuals from all over Mid Canterbury. Farmers donated whole cattle beasts and sheep to the butchers' shops, which we had made into sausages and meat packs. We received a phenomenal amount of beautiful knitting and baking from the Mid Canterbury area, and also from as far afield as Auckland and Invercargill."
One local business that wanted to remain anonymous, donated approximately 30 tonnes, of frozen vegetables, alone, Trevor said.
"Everyone liked what we were doing because the help was going directly to the people."
And the giving came in cash as well, about $25,000 over those nine months. This was used to buy meat and fresh fruit and vegetables.
Over those months, the Ashburton barbecue became a familiar sight across nine different suburbs, always dispensing food and clothing, but just as often dispensing a chance to chat or simply a hug. Many people offered to pay for what they were given; many were overwhelmed when they realised the service was free – one community giving to another.
There were smiles, tears, heartache, sadness and laughter, Trevor said.
"It was very emotional a lot of the time, both on the people up there and on the volunteers who went, but overall, it was very rewarding."
One of the most humbling things about spending so much time in the hard-hit areas of Christchurch was watching the way residents rallied around to help one another, Trevor said.
Trevor and Jane might no longer be making trips to Christchurch with the barbecue service, but that doesn't mean their involvement with the city has stopped.
"We have an emotional attachment to many people up there now and some will be lifelong friends; we haven't let go of Christchurch.
"It's part of our lives now and for all of those who were involved there are permanent memories.
"The mark on us all is profound. Ashburton people gave and continued to give and that really blew us away."
On an average day the team gave away, hundreds of litres of fresh water, $200 worth of bread, $700 worth of meat, $2000 worth of groceries and around $3000 of fresh and frozen vegetable and fruit; hundreds of blankets and hot water bottles and an untold amount of good warm clothing and other household goods.
Across the nine months more than 4000 hours of time was given by volunteers who travelled to Christchurch over 46 trips covering around 30,000km. The service's last trip to Christchurch was to New Brighton in November.
"This was Ashburton's project; the whole of Ashburton got behind it, it was Ashburton doing this.
Trev's Barbecue won Ashburton's Community TrustPower award and lines up in the national finals next month.

Pictured: The word volunteer says it all. Members of the Trev's Barbecue team that took food, clothing, household goods and fresh water to Chrsitchurch people for nine months after the February 22 earthquake.

Photo Carmen Rooney