Despite outlasting the longest barbecue on record by three days, Buckeye Barbeque Qlub and Alpha Epsilon Pi won’t receive official recognition from Guinness World Records.
The official record for the longest barbecue is four days, and the OSU barbecue will last for seven.
“The Guinness people have to be there the whole time,” said Ben Wallace, president of BBQ. “They’ve had people in the past who are supposed to do things for 24 hours, but they’ll stop when the Guinness people leave and start back up when they return.”
In addition to the fee charged for a Guinness representative to oversee the event, record breakers must pay the travel and accommodation costs of officials, according to the Guinness website.
Micah Kamrass, Alpha Epsilon Pi’s barbecue organizer and Undergraduate Student Government president, said it would take “thousands and thousands of dollars” to get the Guinness officials to come out to the BBQ.
“We elected to not pay Guinness,” Kamrass said. “We thought that money would be better spent on charities.”
With the help of corporate sponsorships, the event has already raised more than $14,000 for charity, Wallace said.
That money will go to three different charities selected by Alpha Epsilon Pi.
The first is Chai Lifeline, which sends terminally ill children to a summer camp.
BBQ also selected the Mid-Ohio Foodbank and Faith on 8th, a soup kitchen, as its charities.
“We can really make a big difference, and that’s a rewarding thing,” Wallace said. “Ten thousand dollars can make almost 10,000 meals.”
This philanthropy was made possible by the dedication of participants.
“The average executive has been out here 12 to 15 hours each day,” Wallace said. “There have been several nights that we’ve gotten only two or three hours of sleep.”
But their work is coming to an end soon. The barbecue ends Monday, on its seventh day.
